Speaking at speed I'm not sure one can actually distinguish "a" and "the" in full flow. Somebody good at lipreading might be able to. In any case, he then says "Tesla and Waymo are the top two" so this seems to be an argument about whether Tesla is first or "merely" top two. Seems a funny thing to get excited about if everybody agrees those two are meaningfully ahead of the competition (and the guy does a scales/weighing hand gesture when he mentions the two, suggesting he doesn't see them as very far apart).
I do find the whole market fascinating but have no skin in the game (beyond index funds). Musk going against his core customer base politically seems a weird decision but I guess he has the money and power to do it, so we don't really need an explanation beyond "he wants to". In terms of the impact on the firm, if they really are as far ahead as some believe and he becomes an impediment to that then presumably at some point the Board can eject him?
From a European perspective, with the huge range of different manufacturers selling excellent BEVs here with increasingly impressive/usable range and a constantly improving public charging infrastructure, it seems hard to believe Tesla is really meaningfully far ahead in that field (despite being an early leader) - many others seem caught up or pretty close. I know nothing about the autonomous driving etc. I do wonder whether in that field being a follower might be the safer path (see the mistakes the leader makes - and gets sued for - and learn from that to establish a reputation for safety). But history will eventually tell us the answer.
