From SpaceX to X: Can Musk’s Divided Kingdom Achieve Tesla’s Trillion-Dollar Dream?

Elon Musk presides over a divided kingdom of ambitious tech ventures, from SpaceX to X (formerly Twitter). The central question posed by Tesla’s new trillion-dollar pay proposal is whether the king of this empire can unite his focus long enough to achieve Tesla’s singular, monumental dream of an $8.5 trillion valuation.
The list of Musk’s duties is extensive and demanding. He is pioneering reusable rockets at SpaceX, aiming to connect brains to computers at Neuralink, and exploring artificial general intelligence at xAI. Each of these would be a full-time, all-consuming job for any other CEO.
Tesla’s board is attempting to make one part of this kingdom—Tesla—the undisputed crown jewel. The sheer size of the proposed compensation, potentially over a trillion dollars, is designed to dwarf the potential returns from his other ventures, thereby commanding his primary attention and energy.
Shareholders must now decide if this financial gravity is strong enough. They are being asked to bet that even with the immense distractions of colonizing Mars and building sentient AI, Musk can still dedicate the necessary brainpower to revolutionize transportation and robotics at Tesla. It is a bet on a man’s ability to manage not just a company, but an entire portfolio of futures.