Elon Musk makes a trillion-dollar gamble; the world enters an era of strong leaders

Author: Nusk TechFlow

In the early hours of November 7th, Tesla shareholders cast an unprecedented vote, with over 75% approval, for Elon Musk’s compensation plan totaling up to 1 trillion dollars.

After the voting results were announced, the scene erupted in enthusiastic cheers, with Tesla shareholders loudly shouting Musk’s name.

If this compensation agreement is fully realized, Musk will leap from the world’s richest person to the first “trillionaire” in history.

Heading Toward an 8.5 Trillion Dollar Market Cap

How can Musk achieve a trillion-dollar compensation?

According to publicly available documents, Musk’s incentive plan is divided into 12 stages, each with clear market value and operational goals.

The market cap targets start at 2 trillion dollars and ultimately reach 8.5 trillion dollars. Upon completing each stage, Musk will receive approximately 35.31 million shares. After all stages are completed, his ownership stake could increase from the current approximately 15% to 25%.

Of course, the market cap requirement isn’t just about a temporary surge to the target level; the valuation must be maintained for at least 6 months to unlock.

In addition to market cap requirements, each stage also has corresponding business objectives.

For example, the first stage requires achieving one of the following 12 operational milestones, while the third stage requires completing any three of these milestones.

Twelve 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. Robotaxi fleet: 1 million taxis

12. Humanoid robots: a total of 1 million units delivered

These goals must be achieved within ten years, with some requiring sustained performance over a period to become effective.

Based on these criteria, if Tesla’s adjusted EBITDA reaches $130 billion in a year within the next few years, and its market cap hits $3 trillion, the first to third stage rewards can be unlocked, totaling approximately $105 million in stock grants. This is because achieving $130 billion in EBITDA signifies reaching three operational milestones (adjusted EBITDA of $50 billion, $80 billion, and $130 billion).

Is It Possible?

As of the first nine months of 2025, Tesla’s net profit was $2.9 billion, and adjusted EBITDA was $10.8 billion. It is projected that by 2025, adjusted EBITDA will reach $14.4 billion.

At this growth rate, Tesla would need to grow at a compounded annual rate of 51% to reach a $400 billion valuation by 2033 and sustain it for two years.

This would require revenue to jump from $93 billion to $2.5 trillion, which is nearly impossible from a cash flow perspective—an almost crazy leap.

However, Tesla’s valuation has never been purely based on cash flow models; it is a product of “narrative leverage.” If the story is compelling enough, the market will naturally assign a premium.

Narratives drive prices higher, and rising prices, in turn, validate the narrative.

The market’s high valuation expectations and confidence in Tesla are built on “optionality”—any side business (AI, robotics, energy) could become a new growth engine.

Therefore, the true significance of this incentive plan may not lie in the bonus amount itself but in how it aligns Musk’s strategic direction for the next decade:

Tesla must make breakthroughs in AI, energy, autonomous driving, and manufacturing to realize this “vision economy experiment.”

From this perspective, Tesla’s market cap target might actually be the easiest part of the plan to achieve.

The Era of Strong Leaders

In this vote, Musk’s gains go far beyond financial incentives.

If the plan is fully realized, his ownership stake will increase from 15% to about 25%, further consolidating governance power.

The capital market’s trust in Musk is almost religious.

Over 75% of shareholders supported this plan, even though it would dilute their own equity and weaken board checks and balances. They are willing to let Musk continue to steer Tesla’s destiny.

As a result, Tesla has shifted from a traditional public company to a “narrative platform” centered around its founder. Its valuation, strategy, branding, and technological pace are all tied to one person’s will.

Similar phenomena are playing out across industries, signaling that the world is entering an era of strong leaders.

In AI, companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are reinforcing core founders’ long-term dominance through equity and voting mechanisms;

In the crypto world, many protocols revolve around “core founders + token narratives.”

Founders provide stories and direction, capital supplies resources and time, and governance rights are consciously ceded in exchange for ongoing narrative expansion.

The essence of the strong leader era is a collective voluntary ceding of power.

Investors, employees, regulators, and society as a whole are, in the name of “growth” and “innovation,” handing more authority to a few individuals.

Worth Learning from Web3

Tesla’s equity incentives can also be seen as a kind of Tokenomics experiment.

In the crypto world, many projects release large portions of tokens to the team and founders immediately after the Token Generation Event (TGE).

Narrative-driven, with delayed realization, this has become a structural flaw—projects often tell grand stories to enable early cash-outs, while execution, products, and profits are postponed.

This “cash out first, build later” model may attract speculative capital in the short term but is difficult to sustain for long-term innovation and trust.

Compared to that, Tesla’s compensation plan resembles a structured long-term incentive model.

Equity incentives are not granted upfront but are unlocked only after reaching certain market cap levels and maintaining them for a period; additionally, rewards are tied to concrete results like revenue, profit, user growth, or product deployment, and ultimately decided by shareholders.

If founders and teams want high returns, they must continuously drive growth in market cap, cash flow, and products.

If the crypto industry could adopt a similar structure—releasing tokens in sync with market cap performance and product milestones—it might filter out projects that truly create cash flow and utility.

This could help Web3 move from “storytelling” to genuine “product delivery.”

But then again, curious—how many people would still want to start a Web3 project?