TESLA AT THE CROSSROADS: WHY MUSK CHOSE ROBOTAXI OVER MODEL 2

Summary from the TLDR newsletter

Elon Musk overruled members of his key senior staff, with some of them leaving the company, when he decided to choose the Robotaxi over producing a low-budget EV. If Tesla could pull off its promise of the Robotaxi, it would mean outsized profits for Tesla and its investors. The value of having the Robotaxi far outstripped the value of the Model 2 in stock price. Musk uses Tesla's stock to invest in his other businesses - if he had chosen not to go forward with the Robotaxi, and Tesla's stock price collapsed, his entire empire would have gone down.