Remember Ross Gerber? The guy who used to sing Tesla’s praises louder than a Model S Plaid hitting 60 mph? Well, plot twist: he’s now basically Tesla’s most vocal ex-boyfriend, and he’s got some opinions about what’s coming next.
Gerber, who runs Gerber Kawasaki Wealth & Investment Management (yes, that’s a real company name), just dropped what might be the most brutally honest take on Tesla’s future. His prediction? 2026 is going to be Elon’s “come-to-Jesus year.” And honestly, after watching Tesla’s stock bounce around like a pinball this year, he might be onto something.
Here’s the tea: While Elon was busy playing government efficiency czar and tweeting about everything except cars, Waymo was quietly eating Tesla’s lunch in the self-driving space. Gerber’s not mincing words here – he thinks Musk’s year-long Tesla vacation basically cost the company a full year of progress. Ouch.
The real kicker? Gerber thinks Tesla’s stubborn refusal to use LiDAR technology is like bringing a knife to a gunfight. While Waymo is out here expanding their robotaxi service with actual sensors that work, Tesla is still betting everything on cameras and AI. It’s like insisting you can navigate with just your phone’s GPS while everyone else has a full navigation system.
“Waymo has expanded rapidly in our area,” Gerber told Business Insider, probably while watching a Waymo cruise past his office window. “Tesla could solve full self-driving next month if they just threw a couple sensors on and improved their hardware system.” But will they? Spoiler alert: probably not.
The bigger picture here is that Tesla has painted itself into a corner. Musk has basically staked the company’s entire future on autonomous driving working perfectly. No pressure, right? But here’s the thing – even if Tesla magically catches up to Waymo tomorrow, Gerber thinks they’ve got an image problem that’s harder to fix than buggy software.
“The image of the company is so negative in people’s minds that even if they had cabs everywhere, people would just choose another cab company,” he said. Translation: Elon’s Twitter antics might have cost Tesla more than just time.
And don’t even get Gerber started on those humanoid robots Musk keeps promising will eliminate poverty and perform surgery. (Yes, Elon actually said that. No, we’re not making this up.)
So what’s Gerber’s play? He’s betting on Alphabet – you know, Google’s parent company that owns Waymo. His logic is pretty simple: they’ve got the money, the technology that actually works, and they’re not distracted by social media drama or government side quests.
Look, Tesla revolutionized electric cars and deserves credit for that. But 2026 might be the year we find out if they can actually deliver on all those wild promises, or if they’re just really good at making flashy presentations. Either way, it’s going to be one hell of a show.