Hey everybody Rob Maurer here and today I've got a number of personal announcements to make. After more than six years and almost 1500 episodes of Tesla Daily, today's episode will be the last. It almost doesn't feel real to say that, but for a few reasons that I'll talk about, I think that it's time.
Tesla has come such a long way from the first time I turned on the microphone back in 2017. At that point Tesla was worth $20 a share and delivered 230,000 cars. Total. Now we're over 5 million Tesla vehicles on the road. Tesla delivers 230,000 cars every 6 weeks. Tesla's energy storage deployments alone this year might exceed the battery capacity from those first 230,000 cars. The growth has been amazing and we've certainly been through a lot alongside that growth over these last 6 years.
It was funding secured which led to my first video on YouTube with galley on his channel. The S&P 500 inclusion when I was on the phone with my brokerage during that livestream, interviewed a ton of great people, authors, analysts. Thank you to those people for joining the channel. Quitting my job, getting my first Tesla. The first deliveries of the Model 3, the Model Y, Cybertruck, the S&X refresh, Highland, and my FSD Beta Mega Pack 4680s. These products have turned Tesla into perhaps the most followed company in history. And one of the most valuable for market cap but also for society. Everything we've talked about for years is unfolding right before our eyes and it's nothing short of incredible. It's beautiful.
I'm so proud of what Tesla has accomplished and I'm so lucky to have been able to help hundreds of thousands of people follow along. And that's a responsibility that I've tried to live up to every single day. As Tesla continues to progress, I feel the value of Tesla daily diminishing. That's a good thing. We don't need to analyze Tesla's balance sheet to figure out if Tesla's going to make it. They've made it. I don't need to tell you for the 50th time that the so-called so-called recall is just a software update or that Tesla vehicles are actually the safest on the road. We all know these things now. This wasn't always the case though. There used to just be a handful of people explaining these things. But now there are hundreds, maybe thousands of people creating Tesla content really 24-7.
Anyway, I guess it's a long way of saying that I feel the job that I set out to do to help people really understand what Tesla is and what Tesla can become is complete, at least in this format. Tesla daily, as a channel, is inherently extremely restrictive. It has to be Tesla, it has to be daily, and I've set the precedent that it really needs to cover every little detail. And to be honest, that's been pretty taxing on me. Content creation isn't easy if you want to do it well. And from day one, I think that I've done this the right way. No clickbait, never sold out to advertisers or promoters. I don't even hassle people to like the videos or sign up for Patreon, probably to my detriment. And I've truly strived to make Tesla daily amazing every single day. And that requires a lot of time.
Which brings us to the second big reason for this decision. So you may have noticed over the last year that there have been a couple of times where I had to miss a few episodes due to other work as I noted at those times. Well, I haven't said much about it yet. I've been working extremely hard on another project. That project is an investment firm called First Principles Group, or FPG. In many ways, FPG echoes the principles that Tesla daily was established on. Authenticity, transparency, trustworthiness, and accurate, understandable information. And I think as many of us have noticed, it seems like it's far too often that these principles are lacking in the financial industry. We really want to make this better.
So with First Principles Group, we're bringing those principles into financial services like venture capital, wealth management, and others. And I really think we're in a position here to have a huge impact both for our investors, many of which are part of this audience, and for the companies that we invest in. Which I suspect our companies that many here are rooting for. When I started Tesla daily, I truly felt like it might be able to make a difference for people. And I feel the same way about First Principles Group now. Now managing this over the last year while doing Tesla daily has been pretty crazy. Some 100 hour weeks where I had to pause the podcast, as I mentioned. But we're on a great path here.
And I think the investments we have made into what we believe are some of the most exciting future defining companies that exist will have a real impact. And it's awesome to support their growth and really make a difference here. And we're looking forward to growing alongside those companies for many years to come. This is important. And right now, for me, it needs to be the focus.
We've got a great group of investors, got a great team with myself and Ben Holland as managing partners. Ben has been listening to Tesla daily really since the beginning. I've known him for many years now. I live about 10 minutes away from him now in Chicago. And the simplest thing I could say about Ben is that he gets it. He shares the values and the principles that are so important to me that we just kind of talked about. He understands the problems and the opportunities that we've been discussing here for years. And is just a good guy trying to make some pretty cool things happen. Prior to working on FPG full time, he was an executive director of investments at Oppenheim or he's a certified financial planner, CFP. So he's got a lot of great experience and industry knowledge. And it's been amazing building this with Ben.
So our website is at firstprincibles.group. If you want to learn more or stay updated, make sure to fill out the contact form there and we'll be able to share a lot more information about FPG. I know also we've got a lot of people in this audience that could be a great part of the FPG team as well. So if you think you might be able to contribute really in any way, we do have a jobs page up on the site. So also check that out.
I'm as excited for this next step with FPG as I am sad about the closing of the incredible chapter that Tesla daily has been. Even though it's coming to an end, I do still want to be here to talk about all of the amazing things that I'm interested in. I do still want to cover Tesla closely. And my point of view on Tesla is unchanged. I'll still do our normal earnings coverage next week. And I'll be here to talk about major developments, but it'll be less frequent, which I think I'm better suited for anyway. I'm much more of an analysis person than I am a news person. I'm trying to take a little bit more time on X2 as that advances. If I can get subscription set up, I think it'd be fun to set aside a couple hours and just chat with people, do and ask me anything, stuff like that. But in general, I'd say I'm just looking forward to a little bit more flexibility with content and seeing how that evolves over time.
I would say though, I do need just a bit of a break in general on content as well. It's been a great six years. I could not have done this without the amazing support from this audience. When I started, I didn't really think Tesla would last six months and now we're here six years later. Without people stepping up, offering support, offering encouragement, sharing with others, it really didn't stand a chance. I'm forever grateful to each and every one of you. For those that have asked in the past about a way to say thank you, Patreon is still there, but there are a number of different one-time options in the description today if you would like to show your appreciation for Tesla daily over the years. Only one to two percent contribute financially and while YouTube ad revenue definitely helps, those direct contributions are really, really what made this possible for the last six years. So I just want to say I'm especially thankful to that small group. It's far too many people to note here, but it means so much to me that I wanted to do that anyway. So it might be a boring video. I'll tell you that right now, but you'll also find a link in the description to that today as well.
I do also want to especially thank my video editor Jossum for being such an awesome, phenomenal partner with the video editing over the years. This time in my life has been one that I never expected, I never imagined, and I'll never forget. It's been an honor to be a part of your lives for a few minutes every day for the last few years and I'll continue to look forward to our time together in the future, even if it is a little bit less frequent. I wish you all the very best and as always, thank you for listening.