3 Reasons To Believe In Elon Musk For The 'Future Of Humanity'

"Betting against Elon Musk is betting against the future of humanity, and it's an incredibly stupid thing to do."

That's what angel investor Jason Calacanis said this week. Bold claim?

Not really, and here are three reasons why Calacanis is making a long-term bet on the Tesla Inc TSLA CEO:

• 1. Global warming.
  2. Remove the dependency on dictatorships controlling oil.
  3. Self-driving cars will save 30,000 lives in the United States.

"You're literally taking a bet that burning oil and destroying the environment and ripping fossil fuels and polluting the environment is a better model than using the sun’s energy and having clean air," Calacanis told TheWrap earlier this week. "If you want to bet against that in the age of millennials, who make purchasing decisions based upon morality and ethics, you are going to get hit by a train."

Calacanis is an investor in more than 150 companies, including four multibillion-dollar unicorns. He has also built and sold multiple companies. Back when Musk's SpaceX was on the brink of collapse, Calacanis swooped in.

"Tell me something good that’s going on ... [Musk] said, 'Well, don’t tell anybody, but here’s the clay model of the Model S.' And he showed me the clay model of the sedan. And I said, 'Wow, that’s gorgeous. What do you think you can get it for?' And he said, 'Well don’t tell anybody, but I think I can make this for 50 grand.' So, I went home and I wrote two checks for $50,000 and I put them in a FedEx envelope and I said, ‘E: Looks like a great car. I’ll take two.'"

Calacanis became the owner of the very first Tesla Model S.

"It said, 'Congratulations, your serial number reservation is 00001 and 000073,'" Calacanis told TWiT in 2015. "I forwarded it to Elon and I was like, 'Elon, you don’t have to give me the first one.' And he goes, 'I want you to have it, you ordered it before anybody, you deserve it.'"

Calacanis published a book this summer, "Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups--Timeless Advice from an Angel Investor Who Turned $100,000 into $100,000,000," in which he chronicles his run of success over the past 25 years.

Related Links:

The Futurist Scorecard: A Look At (Almost) Everything That Interests Elon Musk Besides Building Cars

The Autonomous Future: Gene Munster's 2020 Vision Of The Road

Image: Heisenberg Media, Flickr