Musk's trillion-dollar gamble, the world enters an era of strongmen
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Musk's trillion-dollar gamble, the world enters an era of strongmen
The essence of the strongman era is a collective, voluntary transfer.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Niuke, TechFlow
In the early hours of November 7, Tesla shareholders cast an unprecedented vote, approving Elon Musk's compensation package worth up to $1 trillion with over 75% in favor.
After the results were announced, cheers erupted at the scene as Tesla shareholders shouted Musk’s name enthusiastically.
If this pay agreement is fully realized, Musk would leap from being the world's richest person to becoming the first-ever "trillionaire."
Towards an $8.5 Trillion Market Cap
How can Musk earn this $1 trillion compensation?
According to public filings, Musk’s incentive plan consists of 12 stages, each with clear market capitalization and operational targets.
The market cap target starts at $2 trillion and ultimately reaches $8.5 trillion. For each stage completed, Musk will receive approximately 35.31 million shares. Upon completing all stages, his ownership stake could increase from the current ~15% to 25%.
However, meeting the market cap requirement isn’t enough through a temporary surge—it must be sustained for at least six months to unlock each tranche.
In addition to market cap, each stage also includes specific business milestones.
For example, Stage One requires achieving one of the following 12 operational milestones, while Stage Three requires achieving any three of them.
The 12 Operational Milestones:
1. Adjusted EBITDA: $50 billion
2. Adjusted EBITDA: $80 billion
3. Adjusted EBITDA: $130 billion
4. Adjusted EBITDA: $210 billion
5. Adjusted EBITDA: $300 billion
6. Adjusted EBITDA: $400 billion
7. Adjusted EBITDA: $400 billion
8. Adjusted EBITDA: $400 billion
9. Cumulative vehicle deliveries: 20 million units
10. FSD users: 10 million
11. Robotaxis: 1 million taxis
12. Humanoid robots: cumulative delivery of 1 million units
These goals must be achieved within ten years, and some must be maintained continuously for a certain period to qualify.
Under these conditions, if Tesla achieves an adjusted EBITDA of $130 billion in a single year within the coming years and reaches a market cap of $3 trillion, it would unlock rewards for Stages One through Three—totaling stock grants worth $105 million—because a $130 billion EBITDA means the company has met three operational milestones (adjusted EBITDA reaching $50B, $80B, and $130B).
Is It Achievable?
In the nine months ended September 2025, Tesla recorded a net profit of $2.9 billion and an adjusted EBITDA of $10.8 billion, with an estimated full-year 2025 adjusted EBITDA of $14.4 billion.
At this rate, Tesla would need to grow at a 51% annual compound growth rate to reach $400 billion in adjusted EBITDA by 2033—and sustain that level for two consecutive years.
This implies revenue would have to rise from $93 billion to $2.5 trillion—an almost insane leap from a cash flow perspective, bordering on impossible.
But Tesla’s valuation has never been the result of cash flow models; rather, it is a product of “narrative leverage.” A strong enough story naturally commands a premium from the market.
Narratives drive price increases, and rising prices in turn validate the narrative.
High valuation expectations and confidence in Tesla have always rested on “optionality”—any secondary business line (AI, robotics, energy) could become a new growth engine.
Therefore, the real significance of this incentive plan may not lie in the size of the bonus, but in how it aligns Musk’s strategic direction for the next decade:
Tesla must achieve breakthroughs across AI, energy, autonomous driving, and manufacturing to make this “vision economy experiment” a reality.
From this perspective, the market cap target is actually the easiest part of the entire plan to achieve.
Era of Strongmen
In this vote, Musk gained far more than just financial incentives.
If the plan is fully realized, his ownership stake will rise from 15% to about 25%, meaning a re-concentration of governance power.
The capital markets’ trust in Musk borders on religious devotion.
Over 75% of shareholders chose to back this plan—even though it dilutes their own equity and weakens board checks and balances—willing to let Musk continue steering Tesla’s destiny.
Thus, Tesla evolves further from a traditional public company into a founder-centric “narrative platform,” where its valuation, strategy, brand, and technology roadmap are all tied to the will of one individual.
Similar phenomena are unfolding across industries—our world is entering an era of strongmen.
In AI, companies like OpenAI and Anthropic have structured equity and voting mechanisms designed to reinforce long-term dominance by core founders.
In the cryptocurrency world, many protocols revolve around a “core founder + token narrative” model.
Founders provide vision and direction; capital provides resources and time. Governance rights are consciously ceded to ensure continuity and expansion of the narrative.
The essence of the strongman era is a collective act of voluntary delegation.
Investors, employees, regulators, and society at large are handing greater power to a select few—all in the name of “growth” and “innovation.”
A Lesson for Web3
Tesla’s equity incentive scheme is essentially a form of Tokenomics experiment.
In the crypto world, many projects distribute large token allocations to teams and founders immediately upon token generation (TGE).
Narrative-first, delivery-later has become a widespread structural flaw—teams often cash out early after telling sufficiently grand stories, while execution, product development, and profitability come much later—if at all.
This “reward-before-building” model can attract speculative capital in the short term but struggles to support lasting innovation and trust.
In contrast, Tesla’s compensation plan resembles a structured, long-term incentive model.
Equity is not granted upfront but unlocked only when market cap hits specific thresholds and is sustained over time. Moreover, rewards are tied to concrete outcomes—revenue, profits, users, or product launches—measurable metrics subject to shareholder approval.
If crypto projects adopted similar structures—releasing token incentives based on market performance and tangible product achievements—they might better identify projects capable of generating real cash flows and utility.
It could shift Web3 from “storytelling” to genuine “product delivery.”
Then again, if that happened, one wonders—how many people would still launch Web3 startups?
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