Washington DC, June 10, 2025 --  

Another billionaire has picked a needless fight with an authoritarian president. That never ends well.

When a mysterious mid-air explosion sent the plane of billionaire businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin crashing to the earth, his once tight  relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin went literally up in flames.

That August 2023 crash followed a June 2023 rebellion where the caterer and Wagner private military company leader ordered his armies to leave Ukraine and march on Moscow.  His coup attempt quickly failed sending him into exile in Belarus.  Prigozhin's spectacular rise inspired shocking hubris and finally a dramatic downfall.

Something eerily similar started happening last week as a much richer American billionaire broke  his alliance with President Trump.  Elon Musk called Trump's budget bill an "abomination", liked a social media call for Trump's impeachment, and threatened to decommission the Space X's capsule that is the government's only manned ride into space.

It is too soon to tell how Musk's betrayal of Trump will end.  Musk has backed down from the worst of his threats, just like Yevgeny Prigozhin did two years ago.  In Prigozhin's case that gave him two months to live with peaceful coexistence -- until Prigozhin's plane went down in flames.

Such a fiery end to Musk's rebellion is unlikely.  America is not Russia, and Trump is no Putin.  No FBI agent is likely to agree to plant a bomb on Musk's plane.  And Trump is clearly not capable of biting his lip while he quietly plots against his turncoat ally.

Already, Trump has noisily threatened to end Musk's federal contacts and has warned him not to fund his Democratic Party rivals.  Expect more bluster to come,  perhaps some contract retaliation (of dubious legality),  perhaps followed by reversal by the courts.

Yet Musk still faces real dangers, both to his personal safety from the more unhinged members of the MAGA cult, and from alarmed investors in his businesses.

Just as Trump inspires a cult-like following in politics, Musk has a cult-like following in business.  But Musk's ketamine-fueled antics over the past year have battered his mystique.  His unseemly cheerleading for Trump was followed by his abusive stewardship of the DOGE as it attacked America's civil service.  This destroyed Tesla's brand image amongst its wealthy environmentalist target market.  

After a full year of ignoring his businesses, he now has picked a needless fight with the American President, one that put all of Space X government contracts at risk, and further tanked sales at Tesla by also alienating the MAGA crowd, one of the few remaining markets for its Cybertruck.

Is this enough for Musk's investors to finally give him the boot?  It sure should be. 

But the high valuation of Musk's companies is not based on projected profits or sales.  It is based on the revolutionary promise of Musk's vision and leadership.  Before investors can fire Musk, they must come to terms with the fact that his days of visionary leadership are in the past and that he has become a drug-addled liability.

And there's the rub.  Without Musk, there is no good reason for Tesla's price-to-earnings ratio to be six times that of the S&P 500.  Investors would have to be willing to take more than an 80 percent haircut to replace Musk with a turnaround CEO.  Tough break for sure.  But at least salvaging 20 percent of value is something.  That sounds like a whole lot better of an end-game than riding along with the Wagner CEO as his jet bursts into flames and crashes to earth. 

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Ugly Antics, April 15, 2025

Full Disclosure: David has no shares in Tesla and has performed paid consulting work for its smaller competitor Lucid Motors.