- Elon Musk reminisced a memory he had with Charlie Munger in 2009.
- This recollection was a response to Munger’s crypto criticism.
- Munger likened crypto to a “venereal disease”.
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk took a trip down memory lane as he recalled the time when Charlie Munger described how his electric car company would go down the chute. The incident happened in 2009 when Musk was having lunch with Munger, and the latter told the whole table “all the ways Tesla would fail”.
I was at a lunch with Munger in 2009 where he told the whole table all the ways Tesla would fail.Made me quite sad, but I told him I agreed with all those reasons & that we would probably die, but it was worth trying anyway.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 16, 2022
In fact, Musk’s reminiscence was actually a response to a quote tweet addressing the Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRKa) Vice Chairman’s crypto criticism. Last Wednesday, Munger once again made his hostile stance on cryptocurrency, during the annual meeting of Daily Journal.
Munger firmly regarded Bitcoin and altcoins as “beneath contempt”, and that this “apparent modernity” was mainly used for “extortion, kidnappings, and tax evasion.”
In addition, Munger expressed his admiration for China for immediately banning crypto. He even acknowledged that “we (US) were wrong to allow it” and went as far as likening cryptocurrency to a “venereal disease”.
Moreover, Musk’s tweet has amassed over 82.7k likes and more than 8.2k retweets at the time of writing. Consequently, Crypto Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) showed its support towards the Tesla CEO. One of them was Marc Andreessen, co-founder of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, who tweeted a meme:
pic.twitter.com/NcIU4naU4S— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 17, 2022
Meanwhile, the Musk-Munger clash dates back to December last year–when the 97-year-old Vice Chairman made comments about Musk in an interview. He depicted the Tesla CEO as very capable but was overconfident in himself.
Munger further states:
Never underestimate the man who overestimates himself. Well obviously, some of the extreme successes are going to come from people who try very extreme things because they’re overconfident. And when they succeed, well there you get Elon Musk.