Musk's trillion-dollar gamble: The world enters an era of strongmen.

Author: Niu Ke, Deep Tide, TechFlow

In the early hours of November 7th, Tesla shareholders cast an unprecedented vote, with over 75% of the votes approving Elon Musk's $1 trillion compensation plan.

After the voting results were announced, enthusiastic cheers erupted in the room, with Tesla shareholders chanting Musk's name.

If this compensation agreement is fully implemented, Musk will leap from being the world's richest person to becoming the world's first "trillionaire".

Towards an $8.5 Trillion Market Cap

How will Musk achieve his trillion-dollar compensation?

According to public documents, Musk's incentive plan will be divided into 12 phases, each with specific market capitalization and operational targets.

The market capitalization target starts at $2 trillion and will eventually reach $8.5 trillion. Upon completion of each phase, Musk will receive approximately 35.31 million shares. After all phases are completed, his shareholding could increase from the current approximately 15% to 25%.

Of course, the market capitalization requirement isn't simply a matter of briefly reaching the target level; it must be maintained for at least 6 months to unlock. Besides the market capitalization requirement, each stage also has corresponding business objectives. For example, the first stage requires completing one of the following 12 operational milestones, while the third stage requires completing any three of these 12 operational 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 6. Adjusted EBITDA: $400 billion 7. Adjusted EBITDA: $400 billion 8. Adjusted EBITDA: $400 billion 9. Cumulative vehicle deliveries: 20 million 10. FSD users: 10 million 11. Robotaxis: 1 million taxis 12. Humanoid Robots: A cumulative delivery of 1 million robots. These goals must be achieved within ten years, and some require sustained commitment for a certain period to be effective. According to this requirement, if Tesla achieves $130 billion in adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) and a market capitalization of $3 trillion in any of the next few years, it will unlock the first to third phases of rewards, granting a total of $105 million in stock. This is because $130 billion in EBITDA signifies that the company has reached three operational milestones (adjusted EBITDA of $50 billion, $80 billion, and $130 billion). Is this achievable? In the nine months ending September 2025, Tesla's net profit was $2.9 billion, and its adjusted EBITDA was $10.8 billion. The projected adjusted EBITDA for 2025 is $14.4 billion. Based on this growth rate, Tesla would need to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 51% to reach $400 billion in revenue by 2033 and maintain that level for two more years. This means sales would need to jump from $93 billion to $2.5 trillion, a near-insane, impossible task from a cash flow perspective. However, Tesla's valuation has never been the result of a cash flow model, but rather a product of "narrative leverage." A strong enough story will naturally command a premium from the market. The narrative drives up prices, and prices, in turn, validate the narrative's validity. Investors' high valuation expectations and confidence in Tesla have always been built on "optionality"—any secondary business line (AI, robotics, energy) could become a new growth engine. Therefore, the true significance of this incentive plan may not lie in the amount of the bonus, but in the fact that it is tied to Musk's strategic direction for the next decade: Tesla must achieve breakthroughs in AI, energy, autonomous driving, and manufacturing to realize this "visionary economy experiment." From this perspective, Tesla's market capitalization target is actually the easiest part of the plan to achieve. In this vote, Musk gained far more than just financial incentives. If the plan is fully realized, his shareholding will increase from 15% to approximately 25%, signifying a recentralization of governance. The capital market's trust in Musk is almost religious. Over 75% of shareholders support the plan, even if it dilutes their own equity and weakens the board's checks and balances, willing to let Musk continue to lead Tesla's destiny. Tesla thus transforms from a traditional public company into a founder-centric "narrative platform," its valuation, strategy, brand, and technological pace all tied to one person's will. Similar phenomena are unfolding across different industries; the world is entering an era of strongmen. In the AI ​​field, the equity and voting mechanisms of companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are reinforcing the long-term dominance of core founders; in the cryptocurrency world, many protocols also revolve around a "core founder + token narrative." Founders provide the story and direction, capital provides resources and time, and governance is consciously relinquished in exchange for the narrative's continuation and expansion. The essence of the era of strongmen is a collective, voluntary relinquishment. Investors, employees, regulators, and even society are all, in the name of "growth" and "innovation," handing over more power to a select few. Worthy of Web3 Learning. Tesla's equity incentive program can also be considered a Tokenomics experiment. In the crypto world, many projects release a large amount of tokens to the team and founders all at once after token generation (TGE). Narrative-driven, delivery-delayed approach has become a common structural flaw; project teams often cash out early after telling a sufficiently grand story, while execution, product development, and profits are delayed. This "pay first, build later" model may attract speculative capital in the short term, but it's difficult to sustain long-term innovation and trust. In contrast, Tesla's compensation plan is more like a structured long-term incentive model. Equity incentives are not granted initially, but unlocked only after the market capitalization reaches a specific range and remains so for a period of time; furthermore, rewards must be tied to specific results, including quantifiable metrics such as revenue, profit, user base, or product launches; ultimately, shareholders decide whether to approve them. For founders and teams to obtain high returns, they must continuously drive growth in market capitalization, cash flow, and products. If the crypto industry could introduce a similar structure, allowing token incentives to be triggered in tandem with market capitalization performance and product achievements, it might be able to filter out projects that truly generate cash flow and use value. This would allow Web3 to truly move from "storytelling" to "product realization." However, if that were the case, one wonders how many people would still be starting businesses on Web3?