Elon Musk Says Tesla Has Caused Him Personal and Professional Pain

While speaking at The B Word conference, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk had some interesting confessions to make about his company and how it has caused him pain.

He admitted at the bitcoin and crypto related conference that Tesla played a part in some of his personal and professional pain.

At the conference Musk was explaining how Tesla could play a role in helping the bitcoin industry transition to clean energy. He believes the company could help bitcoin miners switch to renewable energy, but it is currently limited by tight supply of battery cells.

He also acknowledged that Tesla is still not manufacturing its custom-designed 4680 cells for commercial use in electric cars or energy storage systems yet.

During a panel, Square Crypto lead Steve Lee asked Musk what the energy-intensive bitcoin industry can do “to accelerate the transition to renewable energy” and “could Tesla Energy play a role?”

Musk replied, “Well, I think Tesla can play a role.”

“I would say I’ve had some pretty tough life experiences and Tesla’s probably responsible for two-thirds of all personal and professional pain combined to give you a sense of perspective there,” he added.

“In fact the limiting factor for us right now is cell production. So we need to both internally get our Tesla internal battery cells produced as well as increase supply from suppliers.”
Musk says that once the company can make its own battery cells, it will still rely on other battery cell makers. Its current cell suppliers include Panasonic, LG and CATL.

“Generally when I talk to our suppliers and they say ‘how many cells would you like?’ I say ‘how many cells can you make?’ you know ’cause sometimes they’re concerned, is Tesla gonna compete with them on cells? I’m like no no, if you want to make the cells be our guest. It’s just that we need a crazy number of batteries.”

“My expectation is not like that the energy production must be pure as the driven snow, but it also cannot be using the world’s dirtiest coal which it was for a moment there. So. You know, that’s just difficult for Tesla to support in that situation. I do think long-term renewable energy will actually be the cheapest form of energy, it just doesn’t happen overnight.”

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.