The essence of the era of strongmen is a collective voluntary relinquishment.
Written by: Niuske, Deep Tide TechFlow
In the early hours of November 7, Tesla shareholders cast an unprecedented vote, with over 75% approving Elon Musk's compensation plan totaling up to $1 trillion.
After the voting results were announced, the venue erupted in enthusiastic cheers, with Tesla shareholders loudly chanting Musk's name.
If this compensation agreement is fully realized, Musk will leap from the world's richest person to become the first "trillionaire."
Aiming for an $8.5 trillion market value
How can Musk obtain a trillion-dollar salary?
According to public documents, Musk's incentive plan will be divided into 12 phases, each with specific market value and operational targets.
The market value target starts at $2 trillion and ultimately reaches $8.5 trillion. For each phase completed, Musk will receive approximately 35.31 million shares. After completing all phases, his shareholding ratio may increase from the current approximately 15% to 25%.
Of course, the market value requirement is not just a temporary spike to the target level; it must maintain the corresponding market value for at least 6 months to unlock.
In addition to the market value requirements, each phase also has corresponding business targets.
For example, the first phase requires completing one of the following 12 operational milestones, while the third phase requires completing any three of these 12 operational milestones.
The twelve operational milestones are:
Adjusted EBITDA: $50 billion
Adjusted EBITDA: $80 billion
Adjusted EBITDA: $130 billion
Adjusted EBITDA: $210 billion
Adjusted EBITDA: $300 billion
Adjusted EBITDA: $400 billion
Adjusted EBITDA: $400 billion
Adjusted EBITDA: $400 billion
Cumulative vehicle deliveries: 20 million vehicles
FSD users: 10 million
Robot taxis: 1 million taxis
Humanoid robots: Cumulative delivery of 1 million robots
These targets must be achieved within ten years, and some need to be maintained for a certain period to take effect.
According to this requirement, if Tesla achieves an adjusted EBITDA of $130 billion in one year within the next few years, and the market value reaches $3 trillion, it can unlock the rewards for the first to third phases, granting a total of $105 million worth of stock. This is because an EBITDA of $130 billion means the company has reached three operational milestones (adjusted EBITDA of $50 billion, $80 billion, and $130 billion).
Is it achievable?
As of September 2025, Tesla's net profit was $2.9 billion, with adjusted EBITDA of $10.8 billion, and the adjusted EBITDA for 2025 is expected to be $14.4 billion.
Based on this level, Tesla would need to grow at a compound annual rate of 51% to reach $400 billion by 2033 and maintain it for another two years.
This means sales would need to jump from $93 billion to $2.5 trillion, which is almost insane from a cash flow perspective and is considered an impossible task.
However, Tesla's valuation has never been the result of a cash flow model but rather a product of "narrative leverage." If the story is strong enough, the market will naturally provide a premium.
Narratives drive price increases, and prices, in turn, validate the correctness of the narratives.
Everyone's high valuation expectations and confidence in Tesla have been built on "optionality," where any side business (AI, robotics, energy) could become a new growth engine.
Therefore, the true significance of this incentive plan may not lie in the amount of the bonus but in its binding of Musk's strategic direction for the next decade:
Tesla must achieve comprehensive breakthroughs in AI, energy, autonomous driving, and manufacturing to realize this "visionary economic experiment."
From this perspective, Tesla's market value targets are actually the easiest part of the plan to achieve.
The era of strongmen
In this vote, Musk gained far more than just financial incentives.
If the plan is fully realized, his shareholding ratio will increase from 15% to about 25%, which means a re-concentration of governance power.
The capital market's trust in Musk is almost religious.
Over 75% of shareholders chose to support this plan, even if it would dilute their own equity and weaken the board's checks and balances, they are willing to let Musk continue to lead Tesla's fate.
As a result, Tesla has further transformed from a traditionally defined public company into a "narrative platform" centered around its founder, with its valuation, strategy, brand, and technological pace all bound to one person's will.
Similar phenomena are unfolding across different industries, and the world is entering the era of strongmen.
In the AI field, the equity and voting mechanisms of companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are reinforcing the long-term dominance of core founders;
In the cryptocurrency world, many protocols also center around "core founders + token narratives."
Founders provide stories and direction, capital provides resources and time, and governance power is consciously relinquished in exchange for the continuity and expansion of the narrative.
The essence of the era of strongmen is a collective voluntary relinquishment.
Investors, employees, regulators, and even society are returning more power to a few individuals in the name of "growth" and "innovation."
Lessons for Web3
Tesla's equity incentive can also be seen as a kind of Tokenomics experiment.
In the crypto world, many projects release large amounts of shares to teams and founders all at once after the token generation event (TGE).
The narrative comes first, while the realization lags behind, becoming a common structural flaw. Project teams often manage to cash out early after telling sufficiently grand stories, while execution, products, and profits are delayed.
This "cash out before building" model can attract speculative capital in the short term but is difficult to sustain long-term innovation and trust.
In contrast, Tesla's compensation plan resembles a structured long-term incentive model.
Equity incentives are not granted at the initial stage but can only be unlocked after the market value reaches a specific range and is maintained for a period; additionally, rewards must be tied to specific outcomes, including revenue, profit, user or product delivery, and other quantifiable metrics; ultimately, shareholders decide whether to approve.
If founders and teams want to receive high returns, they must continuously drive growth in market value, cash flow, and products.
If the crypto industry could introduce a similar structure, allowing the release of token incentives to be triggered in sync with market value performance and product outcomes, it might filter out projects that can truly create cash flow and utility.
Let Web3 move from "storytelling" to "product realization."
However, one wonders, how many people would still venture into Web3 entrepreneurship under such circumstances?
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