They don’t. Their market cap is higher than all the successful car companies combined. Becoming a successful car company would cost Elon half of his unrealized capital gains. It’s far better to be the company who is going to make us $30,000 robot slaves because that’s a bigger market and one he’ll own entirely.
The only question is what will be the next hype cycle when that succeeds about as well as the Cyber Truck.
Oh I was in no way saying I agree with any of that, just explaining how his mind seems (to me) to work.
He hyped electric cars to the point where someone in here in 2017 told me I was nuts to buy an ICE car because there wouldn’t be any gas stations left in five years. That’s why his share prices are out of proportion to reality.
Now that it turns out the EV market isn’t growing as fast as it seemed when it was all early adopters, and autonomous delivery isn’t ready and won’t be for at best a few years, he’s gotta hype the next thing.
The only question is what will be the next hype cycle when that succeeds about as well as the Cyber Truck.