The world’s first trillionaire
Tesla shareholders today approved a trillion dollar pay package for Elon Musk. The trillion bucks itself is far from a done deal … there are several milestones that must be achieved over the course of several years for the full amount to be paid, some not so tough, some daunting. One of the higher hurdles for instance is that Tesla has to reach a market cap of $8.5T.
Reportedly it’s not just about the money for Musk; it’s about control of Tesla. Most of the compensation would be in the form of Tesla shares, and would double his stake from around 12%-13% to about 25%.
Details: Here’s what Elon Musk needs to do to earn his Tesla trillion
Besides Tesla, there’s Starlink, Neuralink, The Boring Company, SpaceX, xAI, X.com … it’s just possible Musk is actually worth it. Unlike other pretenders to the title, Musk is a visionary akin to Steve Jobs and an extraordinarily productive force in multiple fields including transportation, telecommunications, space exploration, artificial intelligence, and free speech.
Would it make Musk the world’s first trillionaire? He’s already well on his way with a fortune estimated at about half a trillion dollars.
On Tuesday I referred to a “whiff of deflation in the air“. Not only is the conventional forex based dollar index staring to show some unusual strengthening of the dollar, but we’re also seeing the dollar appreciate against other assets, notably stocks, oil, copper, gold, silver, platinum … in fits and starts.
It may seem surreal if not impossible … after all, we’ve been seeing breakneck inflation for most of the year, and it hasn’t been slowing down. But that’s the way it works. Contrary to Fed dogma, deflation doesn’t result from inflation sliding too low, it comes as an abrupt reversal of accelerating inflation. Exhibit A: 2008. Oil prices surged to an all time high of $147 a barrel on July 11, mere weeks before Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Lehman Bros collapsed in a tidal wave of deflation.
Due to the sudden out-of-the-blue nature of such reversals, they are nearly impossible to predict. We have seen some of the ingredients coming together though. A bubble in stocks. A moon shot in gold. The mainstream financial media finally starting to question stock valuations, especially in the bubbly artificial intelligence space, as discussed in If It Quacks Like A Bubble.
We also have some thoughtful technical analysis via Gold Eagle from Przemysław Radomski:
Bitcoin WARNING, Plus: Metals, Miners, and USD Ready to Move
Gold Price and Gold Stocks Slide, but the Medium-term Bearish Case is Likely MUCH Bigger
Volatile Correction in Gold, Silver, and Miners is Still a Correction
We can also cite Warren Buffet’s multi-billion-dollar cash position and Michael Burry’s recent shorting of some high-flying tech stocks. There’s the rumblings in the banking system spotted a couple weeks ago. We also have the so-far-unsatisfied implications of a profound yield curve inversion and uninversion.
While none of this is conclusive, taken together these phenomena point to an elevated risk. We can’t rule out that what we’ve already seen is all the deflation we will see for a while, but we have more than the usual number of stars lining up.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/11/07/white-house-rules-out-bailout-for-ai-as-bubble-fears-grow/
The sheer absurdity of even the suggestion. That the government would step in to support something that many millions of people freely, willingly, enthusiastically, throw many billions of dollars at. At their own risk. The sheer absurdity … makes me suspicious that it could actually happen.
Maybe it’s more plausible than even that. This administration has already been using the public treasury to buy stakes in private industry. Government ownership of the means of production … slouching towards communism. It’s not what made America great, and sure can’t make it great again.
OpenAI is turning radioactive as far as I’m concerned. It’s the nucleus of the circular funding I cited earlier. Then it wants the government to backstop its finances. The latest news is it’s asking for tax credits for data centers. Pleading for federal handouts isn’t how genuinely valuable enterprise makes money. These data centers are already being subsidized by ordinary Americans every time they pay their electric bills. This on top of its refusal to address a question as to how it intends to fund trillions of spending on billions of income.
We can see the outlines emerging. Apparently the same families already finding home ownership unaffordable will chip in to help trillion dollar corporations build data centers.
Lost in all the talk about the capital markets is that investments don’t exist just to provide returns to investors. Their most important function is to allocate capital to projects to that most efficiently address human wants with the least cost in resources. It’s what created modern living standards. This function depends on investors receiving returns according to how well their investments produce results, including losing money when they invest in wasteful projects.
The failure of capitalism to deliver broadly rising living standards in recent years owes to government (including the Fed) short circuiting it. It’s not been allowed to operate. This has been going on for decades, but accelerated in the 2000s, especially after 2008. Contrary to neokeynesian dogma, economic growth does not come from cutting interest rates. It comes from allocating resources to their most productive uses.
It’s Not Just Mamdani. Big Brother Is Coming for the Stock Market.
Another cost largely not priced into AI is that it uses data that has been produced by others without paying for it. The latest challenge:
OpenAI Ordered To Produce 20 Million User Conversations To NY Times
Ha!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/11/07/seized-chip-giant-prepares-to-back-down-in-row-with-china/
Megas dispatch from England:- Trump folds?
Been watching Trump, if you filter his normal bulsh1t the fact he has Orban coming to see him sez a lot.
If he does just wait to see what the Limey-Frog response….its entering an end game.
“They” totally underestimated what Russia & massively overestimated the power of their “Fiat” system…………using Banks not Tanks to try to take power………..its failing.
Mike
Why Indian and Chinese talent are rethinking the American Dream
“The U.S. government’s proposed one-time $100,000 fee for new H-1B visa applicants could fundamentally alter how aspiring talent from India and China view the American Dream. As costs rise, global talent may reconsider where to build their futures—potentially reshaping innovation hubs and redirecting the flow of high-skilled workers worldwide.”
Transparent corporate propaganda. As if the individual would have to be out of pocket. If a corporation wants to hire via H-1B visa, it will cover the cost. This is all about keeping cheap labor for corporate America cheap.
AI Bubbles V Toyota hard work
https://insideevs.com/news/778354/toyota-solid-state-battery-ev-40-year-lifespan/
WTF???
Jobs Report Shocks Market: Is the Fed About to Hike Rates Again?
“The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported on Friday, November 7, 2025, that nonfarm payrolls increased by 210,000, significantly higher than the 180,000 consensus forecast…”
The government is rather well known to be closed. Is AI just making stuff up and reporting it as news?
Hero then, Hero now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8Pgq4fYf60
Mega’s Dispatch from England:- The Ministry of Truth
Well, Well
It seems the dear old BBC has crossed the rubicon, they the bringers of “Truth” have been caught doing something that was both totally pointless & bound to be found out.
They always has a left lean, but not to the point of telling lies…….but they been caught.
We have watched them push more & more left/wing/woke agendas, but to date the worse thing was their Covid coverage were (I joke you not) bring in Greta Thornberg as an “Expert”.
The Bastards even had the affront to start of news service called “BBC Verify” to counter “Misinformation”
Well it seems the BBC did something even Alex Jones would not stoop to. They “edited” a news clip about Trump to give the impression he told his supporters to attack the Capital……when he did no such thing.
Last night the Director general of the BBC resigned as did a number of other high flyers. Today there is a question mark to if this is the end of the BBC. WE are forced to fund the leftist crap & you go to jail if you don’t pay your TV license fee.
Finger crossed.
Mike
The media situation is appalling. We’ve been living for years with selective reporting and framing. Usually they get basic facts right though … bias is expressed through which facts get the attention and how the attention is framed.
Just a couple minor examples from finance … reports about gold often note that gold has no yield, as if that makes it somehow unique. Yet stories about bitcoin or many tech stocks don’t mention their lack of yield. And this morning stocks are up supposedly because of news the government shutdown might soon end. But copper, gold, silver and platinum are all up much more. Stocks are lagging inert chunks of metal. If markets are “happy” about the government reopening, how does that compute?
But did you see that story about the jobs report? Unbelievable. A whole story made up out of thin air. Media are less credible than politicians and used car salesmen. This is supposed to be the information age. Like driving your car … you depend on the validity of what you see through your windshield to make the right decisions about where to steer. What if it’s bogus? How is society going to function looking through a windshield of total garbage?
Economist in Chief Donald Trump has proposed 50 year home mortgages. A solution in search of a problem. If it has anything to do with housing affordability, it’s a net negative.
The interest bill over twenty extra years is an added cost no matter how you slice it. Lower rates don’t help because markets adjust prices upwards in response. Inflation. No free lunch with a longer mortgage either … monthly payments would stay about the same as prices adjust upwards. No amount of clever financial scheming creates more supply.
I was aghast when I saw that the Trump administration was considering offering a 50-year mortgage product. I guess we haven’t yet exhausted every other possibility before doing the right thing. Evidently, we’ve forgotten all about the 100-year, multi-generational mortages during Japan’s real estate bubble during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/1061951895900047
I think to fix this housing bubble once and for all, we’re going to end all federal backing of mortgages. That means Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lose all government guarantees (they are fully privatized and cease to be government sponsored entities) and Ginnie Mae is dismantled. In addition to that, mandate 25% down payments; no more 3% FHA down payment mortages and any quasi-private scams.
While it’s getting into excessive regulation, I’m also starting to think that institutions should be prohibited from buying single family housing. However, perhaps that can be addressed by eliminating the ridiculously low interest rates private equity pays for borrowing money. That’s one of the factors that allowed Long Term Equity Management to exist and become a systemic risk to the financial system when it collapsed.
You know, whatever terms a lender and borrower freely agree to, each accepting the responsibility and risk, it’s none of my business. But the government got itself into the mortgage business, making it everybody’s business. Unsatisfied with messing that up so bad it crashed the entire economy, it inserted itself into the student loan business. How’s that been working out?
Even the giant housing GSEs had no explicit Treasury guarantee, but when they tottered, it was retroactively granted. Investors that had for years collected higher interest rates on the supposed riskier debt then got their risk erased at public expense, effectively subsidizing decades of excess returns. But we had to “save the system”, they said. If that’s what it produced, it was a bad system. And oh, so how is housing affordability by the way?
So absolutely, I couldn’t agree more. Get the government out of it. Ultimately either that happens or USA Inc goes out of business.
Another idea Trump has floated … the $2000 “tariff dividend”. Trump must know that even after receiving tariff revenue the Treasury is still $38T in the red. It’s not like it has a coffer full of cash to hand out.
And that “high income” people – who so far have been turning out to be solidly middle class – would be excluded … just like the no tax on Social Security and tips and overtime … multiple layers of progressivity compound to far higher than advertised marginal rates. If you simply must do it, treat everybody the same. The truly “high income” folks are already in higher brackets and will be sending much more than that right back to the Treasury anyway.
Unless they happen to be a corporation … in which case apparently high income is no barrier to lower tax rates or government giveaways.
wow
Just heard the BBC might lose its funding…..
Shame. BBC used to do a lot of great television. One of Britain’s best exports. Fawlty Towers, Last of the Summer Wine, Keeping Up Appearances, Waiting for God, As Time Goes By, The Vicar of Dibley …
Gold has gone whoosh over the past 24 hours. I think this seals the lid on the recent correction, which shook out the fast money, leaving gold in stronger hands.
Everyone should hope btw the AI bubble deflates soon. The emerging suggestion that it’s too big to fail means there’s a risk that not just reckless speculators, but everyone, will be on the hook for the losses when it does.
The sooner bitcoin reaches its intrinsic value the better too. It’s an incredible waste of energy, in terms of both natural resources and human time, a classic malinvestment.
These bubbles are symptoms of years of monetary malfeasance and the financialization of the economy and the diversion of resources they represent contributes to the explosion of the wealth gap, the lack of affordable housing, rising electricity prices, and the decline in living standards of ordinary people. They’re where capital goes to die.
Much of this is a failure of media. It regularly reports on all these phenomena but fails to connect the dots. They’re all features of the same economy.
The longest US government shutdown on record appears to be near an end. The good news ends there. The key issue in contention was Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) tax credits. Democrats were holding out for the extension of credits for those making over four times the federal poverty limit, which the Republicans broadly opposed.
The 4FPL limit was a horrible idea to begin with, resulting in a near infinite marginal tax rate in the vicinity of the sudden cutoff, something no genuine conservative could conceive. If your income was below the limit, you got a substantial tax credit for buying medical insurance. Exceed it by even one dollar, and your tax bill soars by potentially thousands of dollars for the year.
This defect was remedied with another defect … a temporary suspension of the 4FPL cliff in favor of a phaseout. This was a reasonable solution but its temporary nature resulted in this shutdown.
Republican opposition to Obamacare in general is well founded, but focusing on restoring its worst feature is misguided. Millions of voters are affected. If Republicans allow the defect to resurface, next year’s mid-term elections will punish them severely and it could take years to recover from the political damage.
Instead reforms should aim at repealing the employer mandate. It’s fit for a bygone era in which people changed employers infrequently and has resulted in millions of good full time jobs becoming part time jobs. Better yet, reform the entire medical finance system, a byzantine patchwork of separate features that are costly and confusing to negotiate yet still leave numerous cracks for people to fall through. Obamacare might have been well conceived as a replacement for Medicaid, but served as a complexification instead. If there is to be a medical safety net, Medicaid and Obamacare need to be merged into a much simpler, much less costly and much more effective system.
wow!
Silver having a BIG day
President Trump wants to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War. Changing the name to war better reflects its mission.
I support changing the mission to defense.
Trump in trouble?
I wouldn’t say that … he still has time to get his act together. Remember the media like to hype up narratives. But he’s not doing himself any favors trotting out gimmicks like fifty year mortgages, tariff dividends, stimmy checks, cutting coffee prices, etc. Why bother having Republicans if they act like Democrats? … one party, two PR firms. He gets high marks from voters in dealing with illegal immigration, but his economic policies are just the same old same old … and then some … with his interventionist industrial micromanagement.
While the Land of the Free touts itself as a paragon of liberty, it harbors the world’s most powerful agency of central planning (the Fed), has government-run, nationalized mortgage and student loan markets, a mostly nationalized medical system, educational system … all a mess … and now government is extending its tentacles into what’s left and assuming ownership of the means of production.
Hey, it’s America … we fly the flag of free market capitalism over its long dead corpse.
The Corpse is very much alive & well elsewhere on this Planet……..& it is trying to come back to life in the West.
The big debate today is if the government should stop free BMWs to “sick”.
Mike
It’s going to be a tough slog here. A messy mix of socialism, mercantilism and corporatism is killing living standards but is being misrepresented as free market capitalism. As a result, young people are turning to socialism, under the mistaken impression that free markets are the culprit.
Free market capitalism … don’t knock it till you’ve tried it!
They got free markets, we got GOSBANK
👍 Comment of the week!
Megas dispatch from England:- Its coming to an end?
Here in blighty we just had the latest growth figs or rather no growth. its being stated at 0.1% which is a rounding error in most peoples books. The Government sez that it was the “Hack” on Jaguar/Landover pausing production……..yes they getting despite.
Rather than cutting back on the non working or what i called the “Privileged poor” they decide to just tax more. It seems a coup is about to happen in Downing st……i wonder if its because Starmer has failed to deliver on Ukraine?,,,oh Blairs I.D cards?…
The economy is about to do an impression of that UPS flight & they clueless to do anything to help.
…………..here it comes.
https://www.carscoops.com/2025/11/california-faces-160-million-penalty-over-17000-improperly-issued-cdls/
Helpful?