You might remember that I attended the [Tesla shareholder meeting](https://hive.blog/story/@ericvancewalton/2025-tesla-shareholder-meeting-part-1-of-2) three months ago in Austin Texas. I still can’t believe I was fortunate enough to get chosen in the lottery and got a ticket. It was milestone event because it's likely to be the last shareholder event held at Tesla headquarters and was the moment Elon’s pay package approval was announced. For a variety of reasons it sounds as if future events will probably take place in larger event venues or stadiums. While in Austin I met quite a number of influencers and Tesla executives that I’ve connected with on X in the weeks and months since the event. Without going into too much detail, one thing led to another, culminating in the creation of [this poem for Elon Musk](https://x.com/ericvancewalton/status/2018719049903980928?s=20). Of course it was fun but was also one of the biggest honors of my life. Sometimes in life “luck” just happens to be being in the right place at the right time. When these kinds of things happen I can’t help but think about the opportunity I would have missed if I didn’t enter the lottery for a ticket or if something happened that caused me to turn down the chance to go once I was chosen. Despite the recent collapse of the markets 2026 is beginning with a bang and I couldn’t be more grateful. Here’s the poem: **Never Say Can’t** You arrived like some glitch in the matrix, a maverick mistaken for a misfit who escaped into the world of his imagination through sci-fi novels, comic books, and video games, Instead of bending to fit the world you remade reality from first principles, rethinking things no one else dared to question saving all of us from our forced stagnation, So expertly you surf the lip of the bleeding edge, and tore away the veil to reveal a new epoch where truth and morality matter, we’re no longer just a cog in some broken machine, We now have a pathway to the stars, a K2 civilization already in sight, harnessing every photon, claiming the Sun’s full might, lifting our species beyond the cradle of one pale blue night. There’s no stopping us now, the tide has already turned, reaching past the possible becomes a kind of fever, a bright, unshakable addiction that floods the veins with hope in a world where there’s so little of it to spare. We see you. We feel the weight of what it is you carry. Countless hearts are quietly electrified to share this same narrow slice of time with you. Keep launching. We’re riveted — eyes upward, half laughing, half weeping, all in. You are never truly alone in the storm. Millions hold you in their thoughts from afar, In deep gratitude for the stubborn faith you hold, for the way you’ve never once believed in “can’t”. ![Never Say Can't.jpeg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/ericvancewalton/23z7LRyCMLTARWneTkEYMHudo9J3xoKuw9f317PsyhwMiVjWPELkzusirebHDsmFRDaH2.jpeg) *This photo was taken in the Tesla Freemont factory as the company was ramping up production on the Model 3. Elon hadn't slept in days, Tesla was burning through cash, and the company was only about a month away from bankruptcy.* All for now. Thanks so much for reading. --- [www.ericvancewalton.net](http://www.ericvancewalton.net) ![](https://i.imgur.com/aieouS5.png)

Stars.. .