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ThePremierDaily

November 22, 2024

Elon Musk is ‘one of the great entrepreneurs’ of the last 100 years, says Morgan Stanley’s CEO

Elon Musk is “one of the greatest entrepreneurs” in the last 100 years, according to Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman, who cited Tesla, SpaceX and the Boring Company.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV on Thursday, Gorman was discussing his bank’s loan that helped Musk finance his acquisition of Twitter. 

Asked if Morgan Stanley would ever end up owning Twitter, he said no, but called the social-media platform a “great company.” Then he pivoted to its new owner.

“Elon Musk is one of the greatest entrepreneurs and businesspeople in the last century. And that’s not an exaggeration,” he said. “Just take the Boring Company alone, let alone SpaceX, let alone Tesla. This person has extraordinary capabilities.”

While Elon Musk did not found the electric car maker Tesla, he has since become synonymous with the electric vehicle leader. His involvement began with a $6.5 million investment during a Series A funding round before becoming chief executive in 2008.

Musk’s other endeavors include founding roles in Zip2, PayPal and SolarCity, which is now part of Tesla. 

Musk also co-founded OpenAI, the company behind ChatPGT, but resigned from the firm’s board of directors in 2018 over conflicting artificial intelligence interests with Tesla. Separately, Musk co-founded Neuralink in 2016 to work on “brain-machine interfaces.”

Gorman also signaled confidence in Musk’s ability to lead Twitter, which is undergoing a major restructuring and potentially faces bankruptcy. 

“We’re very comfortable with our position,” he said when asked about on Morgan Stanley’s loan.

The praise comes despite widespread calls on Wall Street for Musk to focus less on Twitter and more on Tesla, which has seen its stock tumble nearly 70% from all-time highs.

For example, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said Musk has been “asleep at the wheel” at Tesla, while Tesla’s third largest individual investor Leo KoGuan has retreated from being a die-hard Musk fanboy.  

“Elon abandoned Tesla and Tesla has no working CEO,” KoGuan tweeted last month. “Tesla needs and deserves to have working full time CEO.”

Meanwhile, Twitter reported a 35% decline in revenue on Wednesday. At the same time, Twitter began auctioning off a variety of assets to raise cash, including office supplies like projectors, whiteboards and chairs. 

Written by Brian Evans.
This article was originally published on Markets Insider.