Got an energetic reply on LinkedIn from an Elon supporter who objected when I said Tesla is overvalued.'n'nEnthusiasm is fine.
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Got an energetic reply on LinkedIn from an Elon supporter who objected when I said Tesla is overvalued.
Enthusiasm is fine. Aspirational thinking is fine. But Tesla fantasy economics deserves a gentle reality check.
The global supply of M1 money—every dollar of cash and checking deposits on Earth—is about $65T USD. Claiming Tesla can surge to an $8.5T market cap means one company would soak up more than 13 percent of all liquid money on the planet. That’s not optimism. That’s astrophysics.
And the idea that this would “create tens of thousands of millionaires” omits a crucial detail. Tesla’s entire current market cap is functionally spoken for under the compensation structure. That uplift doesn’t go to shareholders. It goes to Elon. Investors get dilution, shifting narratives, and the mathematical responsibility to justify a valuation that requires superhuman profitability.
Because an $8.5T valuation doesn’t run on vibes. It runs on earnings. At a P/E of 296.97, Tesla would need to produce around 300 times more profit than it does today. Not 300%. 300x.
That means trillions in annual profit—after costs, after expansion, after competition. There is no credible roadmap in EVs, autonomy, robots, or AI infrastructure that even gestures toward that scale.
So this isn’t about whether people can dream big. It’s about arithmetic, monetary limits, and a payout model that extracts enormous value before the average shareholder ever sees a dollar.
Given those constraints, what is the concrete, operational path that delivers Tesla to $8.5T?
Hope is not a model.
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Got an energetic reply on LinkedIn from an Elon supporter who objected when I said Tesla is overvalued.
Enthusiasm is fine. Aspirational thinking is fine. But Tesla fantasy economics deserves a gentle reality check.
The global supply of M1 money—every dollar of cash and checking deposits on Earth—is about $65T USD. Claiming Tesla can surge to an $8.5T market cap means one company would soak up more than 13 percent of all liquid money on the planet. That’s not optimism. That’s astrophysics.
And the idea that this would “create tens of thousands of millionaires” omits a crucial detail. Tesla’s entire current market cap is functionally spoken for under the compensation structure. That uplift doesn’t go to shareholders. It goes to Elon. Investors get dilution, shifting narratives, and the mathematical responsibility to justify a valuation that requires superhuman profitability.
Because an $8.5T valuation doesn’t run on vibes. It runs on earnings. At a P/E of 296.97, Tesla would need to produce around 300 times more profit than it does today. Not 300%. 300x.
That means trillions in annual profit—after costs, after expansion, after competition. There is no credible roadmap in EVs, autonomy, robots, or AI infrastructure that even gestures toward that scale.
So this isn’t about whether people can dream big. It’s about arithmetic, monetary limits, and a payout model that extracts enormous value before the average shareholder ever sees a dollar.
Given those constraints, what is the concrete, operational path that delivers Tesla to $8.5T?
Hope is not a model.
But your analysis is based on today’s dollar valuation. If the dollar were to reach parity with say the Lebanese Pound, due to the USA having poor government, Elons trillion dollar package will be worth about 16M GBP.
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Got an energetic reply on LinkedIn from an Elon supporter who objected when I said Tesla is overvalued.
Enthusiasm is fine. Aspirational thinking is fine. But Tesla fantasy economics deserves a gentle reality check.
The global supply of M1 money—every dollar of cash and checking deposits on Earth—is about $65T USD. Claiming Tesla can surge to an $8.5T market cap means one company would soak up more than 13 percent of all liquid money on the planet. That’s not optimism. That’s astrophysics.
And the idea that this would “create tens of thousands of millionaires” omits a crucial detail. Tesla’s entire current market cap is functionally spoken for under the compensation structure. That uplift doesn’t go to shareholders. It goes to Elon. Investors get dilution, shifting narratives, and the mathematical responsibility to justify a valuation that requires superhuman profitability.
Because an $8.5T valuation doesn’t run on vibes. It runs on earnings. At a P/E of 296.97, Tesla would need to produce around 300 times more profit than it does today. Not 300%. 300x.
That means trillions in annual profit—after costs, after expansion, after competition. There is no credible roadmap in EVs, autonomy, robots, or AI infrastructure that even gestures toward that scale.
So this isn’t about whether people can dream big. It’s about arithmetic, monetary limits, and a payout model that extracts enormous value before the average shareholder ever sees a dollar.
Given those constraints, what is the concrete, operational path that delivers Tesla to $8.5T?
Hope is not a model.
@atomicpoet as someone definitely not informed on this beyond Tesla is wildly overvalued IMO
Aren't other companies close to half like Apple/NVidia?
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But your analysis is based on today’s dollar valuation. If the dollar were to reach parity with say the Lebanese Pound, due to the USA having poor government, Elons trillion dollar package will be worth about 16M GBP.
Alexand I’m assuming you’re joking, but even in the worst imaginable scenario, the dollar collapsing to Lebanese Pound levels isn’t remotely plausible.
Hyperinflation of that magnitude requires total institutional failure: a breakdown of trust in US Treasuries, loss of Federal Reserve independence, years of uncontrolled triple-digit inflation, foreign central banks dumping trillions in reserves, and a banking system in freefall. That’s not recession territory. That’s state-collapse territory.
Lebanon’s currency fell apart because its government defaulted, its banking sector imploded, and its central bank engaged in reckless financial engineering. Tariffs didn’t cause that. Systemic failure did.
Even the harshest tariff regime would cause inflation and economic slowdown, not a collapse of the world’s reserve currency. The USD is propped up by the largest sovereign bond market, the largest central bank holdings, the largest economy, global swap lines, the oil trade, and its role as the unit of account for global finance.
Countries don’t abandon the foundation of $12T+ in global trade because of tariffs. A USD→LBP scenario isn’t just unlikely. It’s essentially impossible.
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@atomicpoet as someone definitely not informed on this beyond Tesla is wildly overvalued IMO
Aren't other companies close to half like Apple/NVidia?
@pixelpusher220 Both Apple and Nvidia have drastically lower P/E ratios than Tesla, and can therefore justify their valuations much better. Apple is at 36.61 and Nvidia is at 55.21. Keep in mind this is not forward.
