Altimeter Capital CEO on the future of Tesla
You have a small position Speaking of driving, autonomous driving and the like in Tesla, which you revealed on our program the last time we spoke, What takes it from a, quote, UN quote, small position to something larger? What do you need to see from Elon and and that company from here? Well, first let me say I think Elon’s done an extraordinary job and I think his advantage in AI and full self driving relative to all the other manufacturers in the world is deeply underappreciated. I described FSD 12 as a ChatGPT moment for self driving after 10 years of of marginal improvements. We had a profound breakthrough around the imitation learning of FSD 12. I think that will be an incredibly valuable asset to the company. I don’t think it’s an asset that can be replicated by other OEMs in the United States. They simply lack the data and this is data in pixels in and control plane out. So unless you have the data, you’re going to have a very hard time. Catching Tesla and full self driving, I don’t think BYD is going to be able to, you know, play in that game either. And I thought it was fascinating at the moment that the United States is banning tick Tock, that the Chinese government is providing permission to Tesla to do full self driving in partnership with Baidu in China. It shows the resilience and the strength of the relationships the Elon Musk has in China that Tesla has in China, you know, and their own push toward AI. So I think, you know, you can’t think of the company as an auto company. You have to think of it as a technology company. Today we think that it’s. You know fully valued it’s been a, it’s been a volatile ride, but we think this may be one of the companies that can breakthrough on energy, can breakthrough on AI and FSD. And so we’re paying very close attention because if we start to see the adoption and the conversion on FSD that we think is possible, this will be a story like Apple and services where services becomes an increasingly important part of their of their profit make up.