VW Chair Openly Shows Support For Elon Musk After Tesla Posts Q2 Profit

Featured Image Credit: Tesla Explained/YouTube

Volkswagen’s Herbert Diess—VW’s Chairman of the Board of Management—openly showed his support for Elon Musk after Tesla posted its Q2 profit. Diess commented on a LinkedIn post on which showed part of Tesla’s profit in the second quarter.

Diess’ comment roughly translated to: “Elon Musk delivers results that many didn’t think possible. They show that electric cars can be profitable…,” he said. He forecasted that Tesla would live through the pandemic without reporting a loss in either Q3 or Q4, showing his optimism for the company’s future.

#volkswagen chairman posts on linkedin that #tesla may be the most valuable company in the world: translation Elon Musk delivers results that many did not consider possible. They show that you can be profitable with electric cars. As one of the few car manufacturers pic.twitter.com/OekGW289DL

— Conor (@conorsvan1) July 24, 2020

VW’s Chairman of the Board of Management has shown his support and admiration for Elon Musk and his work with Tesla in the past. At the Golden Steering Wheel Awards in November 2019, Diess praised Musk and Tesla for challenging legacy automakers like VW and pushing them to improve. At the time, Elon Musk has accepted a Golden Steering Wheel award for the Tesla Model 3.

"This evening is very important because you now see electric cars very competitive [and] winning…an open competition. That’s why Tesla is very important for us because Elon is demonstrating that it works…I’m happy that Elon is pulling us but I think [the] German industry is really now strongly investing [in electric vehicles] and we will keep you alert,” said Diess who was still VW’s CEO at the time.

Elon Musk had some nice words to say about Germany’s auto industry that day, too. He noted that Germany wasn’t too far behind Tesla in terms of technology in the EV market. And on that same day, he also announced Tesla’s Gigafactory in Berlin, proving Musk’s claim that the German auto industry was striving to evolve and change with the times.

Giga Berlin Cell Production Line Confirmed By Elon Musk https://t.co/ReLjQIIWDJ pic.twitter.com/5H60v4CxMp

— Tesmanian.com (@Tesmanian_com) July 23, 2020

The continuous shows of support from VW’s Chairman reveals that the hard lines drawn between legacy auto and Tesla don’t have to exist. After all there is such a thing as friendly competition. Tesla’s mission was never to destroy the auto industry, but to encourage its evolution. But Tesla can’t force traditional OEMs to change, they have to be willing participants in the transition.

Diess finished his comment with the prediction that in five to ten years the most valuable automaker in the world could be Tesla, Apple, or Volkwagen. Only time will tell if his prediction comes true. As for Tesla, it’s only started reaping the seeds it sowed 17 years ago. And there’s still a lot of seeds to collect.

H/T: @conorsvan1