Moats vs. moonshots: The Warren Buffett-Elon Musk style debate

BECKY QUICK: You’re taking me literally and stepping away from the real story here, which is kind of this war of words between you and Charlie and Elon. And I just want — do you even know Elon Musk?

WARREN BUFFETT: I’ve never said anything to anyone about Elon. I mean, you know — you’re baiting me a little bit to do it, but —

BECKY QUICK: I am.

WARREN BUFFETT: But I’ve never — you know, I — people like his car and everything, but —

But somebody mentioned that now he’s talking about financing. Something this morning about that. I thought I heard that earlier.

BECKY QUICK: Yes. Well, actually, Warren — Andrew just read some headlines where it looked like they may be — Tesla — may be going back to market to pick up some additional financing. I’m not entirely sure.

WARREN BUFFETT: Well that’s —

BECKY QUICK: All I heard was the — all I heard was the headline.

WARREN BUFFETT: That’s what I call a counter-revelation. I mean — (laughs) — you know, because I think it was just a few days ago they said they wouldn’t need financing. It —

But, you know, he’s trying something to improve a product. And I salute him for that. And the American public will decide whether it’s a success. And — it’s not easy. You know? So a lot —

It’s probably easier to develop a new car than it is to compete with Snickers.

But some products have terrific moats, you know. Probably Elmer’s Glue does. You know, WD-40. I mean, there you go.

You can — there’s just certain things that you are not in — much inclined to be dissatisfied with and seek — and I would say that, incidentally, that the iPhone, you know, has a terrific moat.

I mean, people that have an iPhone — or maybe have some other phone. But they want to continue with the product that they’ve got. They want the new version. It’s just easier for them. They’ve learned how to do everything, and their life’s built around it, and all of that, and —

Moats are very useful.

Costco has a moat in people’s mind. I mean, you know —

Amazon can raise the price of Prime, you know, 20 percent. And you can’t do that unless you’ve built something within that image of the Amazon Prime, that’s based on reality, that you’re going to get a lot for your money and you’re going to want to use it. And then you can raise prices $20.

But if you’re selling, you know, if you’re selling some commodity product, you can’t do that. You need a moat.