When Elon Musk crosses the trillion-dollar threshold, it will mark much more than a personal success. This will mark a new phase in economic history, where individual influence rivals that of entire states.
As a Bitcoiner, I see Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision of decentralized wealth and democratized finance as a model for the diffusion of power, a way to make value less dependent on singular actors.
Yet as capital, AI, and politics gravitate toward Musk’s expanding empire, his rise reveals how far we have strayed from that philosophy.
The very idea of “value” could once again be consolidated, this time not in governments or banks, but in individuals who use technology as a form of leverage.
Some would say that Bitcoin embodies the purest form of private property: unconfiscable, borderless and sovereign.
From this point of view, Satoshi might not have considered a billionaire as a failure of decentralization but as its logical, perhaps unintended, consequence.
Elon’s elaborate salary
To date, Tesla shareholders have approved a compensation package that could potentially increase Elon Musk’s net worth to $1 trillion if the plan’s milestones are met.
More than 75% of the votes at Tesla’s annual meeting on November 6 supported a multi-year, option-rich plan that will only pay off if Tesla overcomes operational and valuation hurdles, including a market capitalization of nearly $8.5 trillion and the deployment of large-scale autonomy and humanoid robotics.
The calculations built into Tesla’s plan make an unusual comparison: A single individual’s stock exposure can plausibly exceed the market capitalization of the four major altcoins combined.
How to get to the finish line: wealth, power and politics
If all of Musk’s tranches are acquired and exercised, his beneficial ownership could reach approximately 20%, subject to dilution and financing.
At $8.5 trillion, a 27% stake would be worth about $2.295 billion for Tesla alone. SpaceX is valued at nearly $350 billion in private markets in mid-2025, and published bull cases will reach trillions by 2030 in defense and broadband.
Discussions about funding for xAI have circulated in the range of $75 billion to $200 billion. Layered, the convexity of option granting ties personal wealth to a small set of binary outcomes, most importantly robotaxis and humanoid robots.
These are as much linked to politics as they are technical. In California, Tesla has a DMV permit to conduct testing with a safety driver, not the driverless testing and deployment permits that unlock commercial-scale operations. Separate CPUC approvals govern phases of transportation service, according to state records and Reuters coverage.
NHTSA’s scrutiny of fully autonomous driving features remains a major risk, as shown by past investigations covered by Ars Technica.
The trillion-dollar crypto challenge in perspective
Currently, Elon Musk’s net worth exceeds that of any altcoin network. Only Bitcoin has a higher market cap, over $2 trillion, and I’m optimistic enough about BTC to believe it will continue to outperform any individual’s portfolio.
The second highest, Ethereum, has a market capitalization that has fluctuated between $390 billion and $600 billion over the past few months, currently sitting at around $400 billion, about $100 billion less than Musk’s wealth.
So let’s do some basic advanced modeling.
In a conservative scenario where autonomy is delayed and Optimus remains niche, Tesla reaches a valuation of $3 trillion by 2035, which will bring in about $750 billion for Musk’s 25% stake in Tesla, with SpaceX at $500 billion and xAI at $50 billion to $100 billion.
This produces approximately $1.3 to $1.35 trillion in gross assets, and after accounting for carrying costs, taxes, and loans, the net worth sits just below, but perhaps not exceeding, the $1 trillion mark.
For comparison, if Ethereum was valued at $5,000 with 125 million coins, the market cap would be around $625 billion.
In a base case Tesla hits $5 trillion, Optimus works in factories and energy scale first, putting Musk’s stake in Tesla at $1.25 billion to $1.45 trillion, with SpaceX at $1 trillion and xAI at $200 billion.
This setup makes a trillion-dollar net worth a baseline outcome, while Ethereum, even at nearly $10,000 and with 120-125 million coins, puts ETH’s value between $1.2-1.25 trillion.
In a bull case, Tesla reaches a market cap of $8.5 trillion, robotaxis are widely adopted, humanoids are shipped at scale, SpaceX advances to a market cap of $2.5 trillion, and xAI exceeds $500 billion. Musk’s wealth is in the billions.
The comparison is not that of hero versus protocol; this is the equity optionality in relation to network adoption.
| Scenario (2030-2035) | Tesla market capitalization | Implicit participation of Musk Tesla | SpaceX/xAI | Gross assets | Plausible Net Worth | ETH supply | ETH Price | Market capitalization of ETFs | Key assumptions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | $3 trillion | ~$750 billion | $500 billion / $50 to $100 billion | ~$1.3 to $1.35 T | Less than $1,000 to $1.1T | ~125M | $5,000 | ~$625 billion | Robotaxi Limited Geography, Optimus Niche, Stable ETF Demand |
| Base | 5 trillion dollars | ~$1.25 to $1.45T | $1 trillion / $200 billion | ~$2.45 to $2.65T | >$1,000,000 | 120-125 million | $10,000 | ~$1.2 to $1.25T | Monetization of partial autonomy, Optimus in factories, penetration of ETFs |
| Bull | $8.5 billion | ~$2.1 to $2.5T | $2.5T / $0.5T+ | $5,000,000+ | Several billion | ~120M | $20,000 | ~$2.4 billion | Large robotaxis, humanoid scale, crypto supercycle |
So, for Ethereum to overtake Musk over the next decade and first reach a $1 trillion valuation, ETH would need to surpass $10,000, assuming Tesla’s market cap remains below $3 trillion.
Influence of billionaires and the politics of wealth
However, I believe the social framework around these numbers is also important.
Research published by Cambridge University Press shows that admiration for the mega-rich and meritocracy or system-justifying beliefs reduce support for redistribution and progressive taxation, including among lower-income groups.
Long-term research in political science suggests that policy outcomes respond more to the preferences of wealthy individuals than to those of average citizens, indicating that extreme concentration can lead to lasting political influence.
At the same time, economic studies have shown that exposure to wealthier peers decreases life satisfaction and increases conspicuous consumption and borrowing, with significant effects at the lower end of the distribution, as documented in the Quarterly Journal of Economics and related work.
A 2024 Harris Poll shows majorities believe billionaires are not doing enough for society, and British polls reveal widespread concern about the political influence of the very rich.
These are not abstract vibes around fame. These are channels through which billionaire glamor and media narratives trickle down to budgets, ballots and debt.
Context at scale helps situate ethics.
Forbes counted 3,028 billionaires in 2025, a record, out of a global population of about 8.23 billion, or about one in 2.7 million people.
There are currently no billionaires. UBS estimates global household wealth at $450 trillion. A trillion dollars is about 0.22 percent of that total. Median adult wealth worldwide is around a few thousand dollars, and more than 80% of adults own less than $100,000, according to the Reuters summary of UBS data.
A personal fortune of $1 trillion would be equivalent to the total net worth of about 100 million to 130 million median adults. The base rate for anyone going from millionaire to billionaire is extremely low. Treating a trillion as an aspirational goal for the public is numerically inconsistent.
Political choices constitute the swing factor around the tail. Status quo rules allow the richest fortunes to accumulate, and given the documented tilt in political responsiveness, issues of affordability tend to lag behind.
A targeted 2 percent annual tax on billionaires’ wealth, as modeled by Zucman and cited by Oxfam and reported by the Washington Post, would raise about $250 billion a year, which could fund public goods or lower costs of living while modestly cutting the tail.
A cultural shift from narratives of great men to systemic narratives of progress is generating support for progressive taxation in experimental contexts, thereby creating looser control over the fallout from billionaire worship.
Politics and public perception shape the trillion-dollar race
None of these measures alone changes Tesla’s valuation calculations or crypto demand curves. They adjust the environment in which extreme fortunes find themselves.
There is also a governance aspect within Tesla. Shareholders, not just the board, assessed the convexity of the option and approved it, which addresses one criticism while raising another.
If state authorizations and security agencies effectively control the self-reliance cash flows that underpin the plan, then public oversight now sits upstream of private wealth options worth trillions.
According to Reuters and California DMV filings, Tesla still requires driverless testing and deployment approvals for the robotaxi scale in key markets, and NHTSA reviews remain active. The timing of these decisions, not press events, will determine whether the package will be converted.
We don’t need to cheer or boo Musk to see the comparison clearly.
A currency network’s path to one or two trillion relies on adoption, throughput, and flows. In contrast, a founder’s path to one or more trillions relies on a narrow set of technical and regulatory unlocks.
One can admire the execution or engineering without celebrating a culture of billionaire worship that weakens support for redistribution and amplifies elite influence over policy. The math is clear, worship is optional.
Ultimately, whether the first to reach $1 trillion is one man or a network, the more important question is what type of system we want to strengthen: one based on individual ambition or collective adoption?
