Where Is Musk Taking His Empire?

Key points

1. 01

   A demonstration of power

   On October 15, Musk staged his power and the coming together of Tesla and SpaceX, at a SpaceX site, with thrusters designed by SpaceX. The car is not street-legal and heralds no product.

2. 02

   An almost magical valuation

   The stock market values Tesla at about $850,000 per car sold, forty times a Toyota, while its sales are falling. Between 87 and 97% of its value rests on businesses that do not yet exist at scale.

3. 03

   Promises running late

   The Roadster, self-driving, robotaxis, Optimus and Mars: Musk's promises are generally kept about twice as late as announced, and each missed one is replaced by a larger one. His tenacity has still made some of them come true.

4. 04

   Computing in orbit, the new frontier

   The ambition went from 100 gigawatts to 100 terawatts in a few months. It carried the largest IPO in history, whose prospectus admits relying on “technologies that do not exist.” A terawatt a year would take tens of thousands of Starship launches.

5. 05

   A turn toward defense

   Musk, who in 2017 warned against autonomous weapons, now co-leads a Pentagon mission on future warfare, while SpaceX and xAI sell to the military and the Golden Dome missile shield opens a new market.

6. 06

   Toward a single company

   SpaceX has already absorbed xAI and X, and several signs point to all of Musk's companies coming together, Tesla included, extending the promises by backing the most fragile businesses with those that make money.

7. 07

   Room for uncertainty

   This assessment may be proved wrong. Musk tipped the car industry toward electric and revolutionized space transport with reusable rockets, and Starlink could become an essential service. But in October 2026, Ukraine saw its drones lose their Starshield link without knowing who decided it: an essential service in the hands of a single man raises a question of governance.

8. 08

   Real stunts with no use

   The physics shows that no fakery is needed: 250 kg of compressed air is enough for a 1.9-tonne car. But a single stunt uses up to 86% of the air supply, and the car stays airborne for only a few seconds.

This empire must grow to hold together, while seven of the nine planetary boundaries have already been crossed. The Greeks called this excess hubris. The question the philosopher Bruno Latour asked, where should we land?, applies to Musk as much as to us. To answer it, humanity will need coordination and planning far more than stunts.