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The One Trillion Dollar Man
Guys, Stop Giving Elon Sharp Objects
I’m not sure how much ketamine Tesla shareholders consumed before they approved the most audacious CEO payday in corporate history. But I’m guessing it was a substantial dose.
In their addle-minded, dissociated stupor, Tesla granted Elon something approaching $1 trillion over the next decade if Elon manages to resurrect Tesla’s bruised electric vehicle brand and transform the company into an $8.5 trillion AI and robotics juggernaut.
The deal ties Musk to Tesla for the next decade (or til death do they part).
After the announcement, Musk climbed on stage and danced while investors chanted his name (totally normal stuff).
“Other shareholder meetings are like snoozefests, but ours are bangers. I mean, look at this. This is sick,” Musk said.
To receive his trillion greenbacks, Elon must meet a wild series of operational goals that are far and beyond Tesla’s performance to date.
This includes manufacturing 20 million vehicles over the next decade and bringing 1 million operational robotaxis to the roads (Tesla has sold 7,247,237 cars since its inception in 2003).
He must attract 10 million subscriptions to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving feature on its cars (currently, only about 2% of Tesla owners subscribe to Full Self-Driving).
He must also generate profits of up to $400 billion (Tesla earned $97.7 billion in sales revenue in 2024).
Tesla’s market valuation must continue to rise above its current $1.5 trillion and reach set milestones, which start at $2 trillion.
After that, he must raise the valuation by nine tranches of $500 billion until the market valuation reaches $8.5 trillion by 2035.
The board’s proposal states that Musk would have to “completely transform Tesla and society as we know it,” and he would get “zero” unless he meets the “incredibly ambitious” goals.
1) Switzerland - It is one of the richest countries in the world and home to 106 billioniares. Its 2024 GDP is less than US$1 trillion.
2) A Few American Cities - One trillion dollars is equal to the total wealth of 9 million typical American households. For reference the total population of Chicago is only 2.7 million.
3) Two Fort Knoxes - The United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox houses 4,175 tonnes of gold. With a trillion dollars, you could buy almost twice that much.
4) Fund NASA For A Generation - One trillion dollars would fund NASA’s total budget for 40 years.
Elon is going to have to get back to work if he has any hope of hitting these targets.
Tesla is the only electric vehicle brand with a negative brand perception. And that perception is getting worse.
Tesla posted steep sales declines in EU markets, with the most pronounced drop in Sweden, where Tesla registered only 133 new cars last month, down 89% from a year ago.
As I mentioned last week, Tesla’s Optimus robot still has a “hand” problem.
Although 75% of Tesla’s shareholders approved the deal, not everyone was in favour of making Elon this much richer.
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund said it planned to vote against the package.
The fund, which is the world’s largest national wealth fund, said that while it appreciated the “significant value created under Mr Musk’s visionary role,” it would vote against his performance award.
“We are concerned about the total size of the award, dilution and lack of mitigation of key person risk – consistent with our views on executive compensation,” it said. “We will continue to seek constructive dialogue with Tesla on this and other topics.”
The Norwegians were onto something.
This pay package is a corporate governance nightmare.
When a CEO can plausibly earn country-level wealth from a single company (and Elon is CEO of several companies), the question becomes: who can tell him no?
Tesla already has a famously Elon-friendly board, precisely what the Delaware chancellor called out regarding his still-in-limbo $56 billion pay package, and this multiplies that power imbalance exponentially.
Let me be clear, I have a bias. I like big industrial bets that drag incumbent brands with lagging innovation into the software-and-AI era.
By that measure, Tesla is still one of the only North American companies actually doing that at scale.
But Elon is a complicated personality, and I can’t say I’m a fan.
Is this package visionary or indulgent?
It’s both.
It captures the upside of a world where Tesla (might) actually becomes the AI + robots + energy platform Musk keeps promising, and it socializes the risk of one man steering that future with regenerative brakes fully disabled.
China’s Automotive Expansion
Nissan’s Z9 (Only Available In China)
Zhengzhou Nissan launched a new plug-in hybrid pickup, the Z9, in the Chinese market. It’s the same size as the Nissan Frontier Pro, offers over 35 miles of all-electric range, and pricing starts at just $16,600. electrek.co
Xpeng tops over 40,000 monthly deliveries again. cnbc.com
Great Wall Motors reaches 10,000th car production milestone at Uzbekistan plant. cnevpost.com
BYD doubles down on LFP batteries, safety first for China’s EVs. carnewschina.com
In early 2025, Chinese brands captured more than 80% of all EV sales in Brazil. cnbc.com
Toyota and Honda turn India into a car production hub in a pivot away from China. reuters.com
China’s auto exports surge 14.3% to 112.7 billion USD in the first ten months of 2025, setting a new record. carnewschina.com
Rise Of The Machines
Toyota Walk Me Robot Chair
Toyota has displayed a revolutionary mobility concept called Walk Me, a four-legged autonomous chair that walks where wheels cannot. interestingengineering.com, youtube.com
Xpeng unveiled its next-generation Iron humanoid robot. cnevpost.com
Rivian creates another spinoff, Mind Robotics. techcrunch.com
A team of researchers at the AI evaluation company Andon Labs put a large language model in charge of controlling a robot vacuum. It didn’t take long for the LLM to experience a full meltdown straight out of a Douglas Adams novel, in what the researchers described as a “doom spiral” including a “catastrophic cascade” and a full-blown “existential crisis.” futurism.com
Energy
Electreon EV Charging Highway
The world’s first stretch of wireless EV charging highway was deployed near Paris, France. autoblog.com
There is a shift toward renewables in countries across South America, Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, in many cases helped by the flood of cheap solar panels, batteries and wind turbine components from China, which dominates the world in clean tech manufacturing. cnn.com
A federal judge in Washington ruled that The Donald’s administration can reconsider the Biden-era approval of SouthCoast Wind, a wind farm planned off the coast of Nantucket. nytimes.com
BMW, Samsung SDI, and Solid Power have entered a new partnership to advance all-solid-state battery technology for EVs. interestingengineering.com
Stellantis’ newly constructed battery plant in Windsor, Ontario, will now make batteries for energy storage, not EVs. driving.ca
EV battery recycler Lithion Technologies files for creditor protection. autonews.com
But Wait, There’s More
The Czinger 21C
The first production car born from Divergent 3D’s military DNA and Czinger’s proprietary production system, the Czinger 21C is created through Human‑AI design, 3D printing, automated assembly, and patented in-house-developed materials. The 21C combines road-legal street use with dominating track performance. theverge.com
Ford is in active discussions to end production of the electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck. wsj.com
The new Mitsubishi Eclipse electric crossover gets real with 370 miles of range. electrek.co
Kia’s new electric cargo van managed to nearly double its claimed range while carrying a 1,466 lb payload on public roads, no less. autoblog.com
The breakthrough EV batteries Toyota says will double driving range and cut charging times are facing another setback. The company is once again delaying plans for a new battery plant in Japan. electrek.co
VW said it lost $1.5 billion in the third quarter due to The Donald’s tariffs and Porsche’s shift away from electric vehicles. nytimes.com
Japanese automakers warned that The Donald’s tariffs will cost them billions in lost profits, describing the import duties as a “new normal” that the industry will be forced to endure for the foreseeable future. nytimes.com
Honda has a wheel problem. reuters.com
Brand loyalty is eroding across global auto markets as consumers grow more open to electric vehicles, online purchasing, and new entrants from China, according to a new report from Boston Consulting Group (BCG). canadianautodealer.ca, bcg.com
Rivian is giving its CEO a pay plan worth as much as $4.6 billion over the next decade, a deal similar in structure to Tesla’s record package for CEO Elon Musk, and linked to new profit targets and lower share-price milestones than in a previous deal. reuters.com
Waymo said it plans on launching commercial robotaxi services in three new cities: San Diego, Las Vegas, and Detroit. theverge.com
Waymo eyes Canadian expansion, hires lobbyists to engage federal and provincial governments. autonews.com
Google Maps is bringing Gemini’s AI chatbot to more features, including more “conversational” route planning and the use of landmarks and nearby businesses for navigation. theverge.com
Anker-backed hybrid RV startup Evotrex comes out of stealth. techcrunch.com, evotrex.com
Nexperia microchips are leaving China again, easing a shortage of ubiquitous but straightforward parts that threatened to paralyze the auto industry. wsj.com
Automakers urge the US to extend the North American CUSMA free trade deal. reuters.com
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