Tesla’s big, epic, confusing future

Elon Musk got paid. A lot. Now comes the interesting part: Musk has to make Tesla so big, so successful, and so valuable that the tens of billions he’s getting seem cheap by comparison. You might think selling cars is the way to get there, but you might be wrong about that. Musk and, by extension, Tesla seem far more interested in some much bigger, more ambitious, and decidedly more complicated ideas.

On this episode of The Vergecast, The Verge’s Andrew Hawkins joins to discuss all the things Tesla is working on — and why it increasingly feels like cars are at the bottom of that list. We talk about the Optimus robots, the Tesla Network, the whole “AWS for AI” thing, and what the next three mystery vehicles might be. Finally, we look at how Musk’s relationship to Tesla, and our relationship to Musk, has changed since the last time Tesla shareholders voted to give Musk all that money. Do these two need each other more than ever, or is this a match doomed to fail?

After that, The Verge’s Victoria Song joins to share her excitement about Apple Watch rest days. Er, excuse me, “ring pauses.” It only took a decade for Apple to realize what even the most active people need sometimes, and we’re very excited about the possibility of a saner relationship with our exercise streaks. We also talk about Pixel Watch leaks, the new Samsung Galaxy Watch FE, and whether the Galaxy Ring can be a game-changer.

Finally, we answer a question from the Vergecast Hotline (866-VERGE11 or vergecast@theverge.com, send us all your questions!) all about weather apps. There’s no best weather app for everyone, we realize — but it’s totally possible to get the best one for you.

If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, beginning with Tesla:

And on all things wearables: