**Chap­ter 46: Fre­mont Fac­to­ry Hell — Tes­la, 2018**

In the spring of 2018, Elon Musk’s atten­tion piv­ot­ed to Tesla’s Fre­mont car-assem­bly fac­to­ry, hop­ing to esca­late its Mod­el 3 pro­duc­tion rate from two thou­sand to five thou­sand per week by the end of June, a goal viewed skep­ti­cal­ly by Wall Street giv­en the factory’s pro­duc­tion con­straints. This prompt­ed Musk to require man­agers to pro­cure ade­quate parts, risk­ing Tesla’s finan­cial sta­bil­i­ty for a pro­duc­tion surge, while Tes­la stocks became a focal point for short-sell­ers, bet­ting against Musk’s ambi­tious tar­get due to Tesla’s his­to­ry of loss­es despite its soar­ing stock val­ue.

The chal­lenge of meet­ing pro­duc­tion goals was com­pound­ed by Musk’s bat­tle against short-sell­ers, who used drones and insid­ers to gath­er real-time data on Tes­la, bet­ting heav­i­ly on the com­pa­ny’s fail­ure to meet its pro­duc­tion objec­tives.

Despite skep­ti­cism, includ­ing from with­in Tes­la, Musk enforced a relent­less crack­down on inef­fi­cien­cies with­in the Fre­mont fac­to­ry. Uti­liz­ing a micro-man­age­ment approach, Musk embarked on “walks to the red,” per­son­al­ly address­ing pro­duc­tion bot­tle­necks and elim­i­nat­ing unnec­es­sary process­es or com­po­nents, often ques­tion­ing the need for cer­tain parts and sen­sors deemed to slow pro­duc­tion. His dis­dain for over-automa­tion, influ­enced by pri­or expe­ri­ences, led to a sig­nif­i­cant reduc­tion in robot­ic machin­ery in favor of hands-on human labor, cul­mi­nat­ing in a dras­tic work­force-dri­ven effort to ful­fill pro­duc­tion quo­tas.

In an uncon­ven­tion­al move rem­i­nis­cent of wartime inge­nu­ity, Musk ini­ti­at­ed the con­struc­tion of a tem­po­rary out­door assem­bly line under a giant tent, exploit­ing a zon­ing loop­hole intend­ed for minor vehi­cle repairs. This auda­cious strat­e­gy, designed to cir­cum­vent the impos­si­bil­i­ty of expand­ing pro­duc­tion with­in the exist­ing fac­to­ry con­straints, uti­lized grav­i­ty to move cars along the pro­duc­tion line, sig­nif­i­cant­ly enhanc­ing Tesla’s pro­duc­tion capa­bil­i­ties.

Despite fac­ing crit­i­cal scruti­ny over work con­di­tions and the alleged com­pro­mise of safe­ty stan­dards to achieve pro­duc­tion goals, Musk’s hands-on lead­er­ship and strate­gic shifts grad­u­al­ly yield­ed results. By late May 2018, Tesla’s pro­duc­tion rate had increased notably, though still short of the five-thou­sand week­ly tar­get.

As June 30 approached, Musk’s relent­less focus and strate­gic gam­bles, includ­ing the rapid estab­lish­ment of the makeshift out­door assem­bly line, posi­tioned Tes­la tan­ta­liz­ing­ly close to achiev­ing its ambi­tious goal. On Musk’s 47th birth­day, his com­mit­ment remained unwa­ver­ing, as he con­tin­ued to fine-tune the pro­duc­tion process up to the dead­line, ulti­mate­ly cel­e­brat­ing the achieve­ment of the five-thou­sand Mod­el 3s per week tar­get, a mile­stone that, accord­ing to Musk, solid­i­fied Tesla’s sta­tus as a gen­uine car man­u­fac­tur­er.

The chap­ter cul­mi­nates with Musk reit­er­at­ing “the algo­rithm” — a set of prin­ci­ples derived from hard-earned lessons dur­ing Tes­la’s pro­duc­tion chal­lenges, empha­siz­ing ratio­nal­iza­tion, dele­tion, opti­miza­tion, accel­er­a­tion, and cau­tious automa­tion, along­side man­age­ment insights stress­ing prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence, con­struc­tive crit­i­cism, will­ing­ness to under­take ground-lev­el tasks, and a relent­less push for effi­cien­cy and inno­va­tion.