Musk’s Pattern To Overpromise And Underdeliver

Last Updated on: 1st June 2025, 09:32 pm

Tesla shareholders held onto an idealistic perception that CEO Elon Musk’s return to business would right the all-electric ship. Sure, the company gained more than 22% for the month of May. Yet, former fanbois continue to be disillusioned about Musk’s ties to Trump and Musk’s endorsement of right-wing politics such as Germany’s extremist party AfD. Even more unsettling is how Musk, over and over, has bragged about upcoming Tesla innovations and failed to deliver. Even the most stalwart Tesla supporters are wary of Musk’s pattern to overpromise Mars the moon and deliver a pale Model Y upgrade.

Calling it “progress,” former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich says one of the big reasons Musk had to leave his position in the Trump White House is “because Tesla was tanking, partly thanks to you and so many others who wouldn’t be caught dead in a Tesla after what Musk has done.” Yes, many of us have called out Musk for his blatant disregard for our country’s democratic principles, but Reich is wrong on one big premise: lots of us still love our all-electric Tesla vehicles.

But what are we to think when the Tesla CEO insists that the “future for Tesla is brighter than ever?” Are we truly gullible enough to think that the company’s woes — generated by a drug-addled CEO and a complicit board of directors — are merely “near-term headwinds?”

Or is it more as Matt Purdy of the New York Times captured this week, in which the focus of so much of Musk’s technology — rocketry, humanoid robotics, self-driving vehicles — is part of a longer term goal to make “human consciousness” multi-planetary? Frustrated by having to play by US government rules, Musk is a frustrated rebel, a visionary who’s been stifled by mediocrity as he pursues an outer space existence as “life insurance of life collectively.”

Like an insurance salesman, Purdy says, Musk “has his pitch down.”

“[Our] long term plan is to build a wide range of models, including affordably priced family cars,” wrote Elon Musk in the Tesla Secret Master Plan hosted on the Tesla website 19 years ago. “When someone buys the Tesla Roadster,” he added, “they are actually helping pay for development of the low-cost family car.”

Tesla, however, is no longer that same company. The days of startup potential, of creating something tangible from a blank slate by exploring innovative spaces, are well in the past. Musk did execute a business plan to establish an all-electric car company. What he didn’t do, however, was to follow through on commitments to constantly reach the pinnacle of technological innovation as one decade rolled into the next.

Business leaders occasionally make appealing-sounding promises in an effort to obtain scarce resources like talent or funding. But Musk’s problem is much more nuanced — he’s caught in a web where delivery gaps get wound up in an expected perpetual innovation machine that Tesla simply cannot produce.

In 2023, Musk told investors that his predictions about achieving full self-driving had been optimistic in the past, acknowledging, “I’m the boy who cried FSD.” We’re still waiting.

Reluctantly, Musk spoke in April of this year how the company had experienced a devastating 71% dip in profits. To compensate, he switched the narrative to discuss the company’s pursuit of robotics. Not just any robots, either: the world’s leading robotics company, ushering in the “closest thing to heaven we can get on Earth.” What are we to take away from the pledge that the company is “delivering sustainable abundance with our affordable AI-powered robots?”

At the core of the FSD and robotics dilemmas is the Tesla ability to collect data. The allure of big data collection is its dream to provide innovative solutions to old challenges. Tesla fell into the trap of believing its own story. With its advanced analytics and artificial intelligence technologies, the company could derive insights to set market trends, personalize customer experiences, optimize operations, and make decisions that none of its competitors would be able to duplicate.

Tesla’s robotaxis are expected to be let loose on Austin, Texas streets on June 12. Tesla has been “testing self-driving Model Y cars (no one in driver’s seat) on Austin public streets with no incidents.” Driverless vehicles are ready for prime time, or so Musk says.

Part of Musk’s raison de terre for his fellowship in the Trump administration was to secure additional federal funding for SpaceX. Certainly, that goal has been accomplished in great part. However, in a rattling blow to the Trump/Musk bro relationship, Jared Isaacman, Friend of Elon, has been pulled from consideration as the next NASA administrator. Isaacman, it turns out, made the ultimate loyalty error: he had a history of donating some of his millions to Democratic party causes. Isaacman, seen as a marker of stability to NASA, had already been approved by the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee with a 19-to-9 vote.

His confirmation by the full Senate next week was perceived as a shoe-in. Isaacman is a pilot who has privately flown to space twice with SpaceX. He likely would have been supportive of federal contracts with SpaceX, especially as the Trump administration seeks to phase out the Artemis program and look to Mars flights.

Generally, business leaders try their best to set realistic goals, understand their audience, communicate frequently, and anticipate needs. Managing expectations in this way builds relationships, enhances collegiality, reinforces credibility, and supports goal readjustment when necessary. Musk has indulged in a habit of over-promising and under-delivering, which is never a good strategy to build trust. Communicators like a CEO have a responsibility to impart clear messages, as perception is reality when it comes to promises. A gap between intention and perception generally results in failed alignment of company goals, as we’ve been seeing with Tesla over the last few years.

When a culture of trust and engagement is broken, employees, shareholders, and consumers are left disillusioned. The disconnect gets exacerbated when the gap between promise and delivery is part of a pattern. Questions have begun to emerge about Musk — is the lack of results intentional? If so, why? Do fraud, dishonesty, or incompetence come into play? People with even a small business acumen know that patterns of leadership failures have a history of becoming “extinction-level events” if not stopped.

When can we expect the Tesla trend to overpromise to stop?

An impactful business strategy should have a clear value proposition for its core product line. Establishing itself as different and exceeding its competitors’ capacities, Tesla should deliver on authentic consumer needs and provide its consumers with economic value. Now that its entry level steps are accomplished, Tesla’s key is to scale globally with a constantly innovative yet redundant supply chain for seamless product availability.

These business steps are easy to write and very difficult to execute. It’s the lesson that Elon has to learn, though, against his tempting angels.