I think he's still destined for a spectacular crash and burn.
2025: his obnoxious bullshit and ego make Trump hate him even more. DOGE proves to be one of the most unpopular things about the administration and it cuts the social programmes that are lifelines for the average republican, maybe fucking their chances in 2026/2028.
2026: They have a big fallout, maybe in response to backlash over him cutting like a third of the federal budget or him trying to play shadow president
2027: Trump sabotages his federal funding out of spite/dislike for EVs. Tesla by this point is a MAGA hat you can drive and its share price is corrected to reflect the lost subsidies/sales. Maybe the economy is so bad by this point that Tesla can't even afford to import components for cars that people can't afford to buy. All the while Chinese EVs continue to get better and cheaper while the US market stagnates and ICE cars only become more expensive
2028: Ketamine overdose? By this point he's probably dead, bankrupt, or did a Business Plot to try and overthrow the government that betrayed him.
Decides that the cybertruck isn't shitty enough, makes an ICE one that "rolls coal" stock
I'm envisioning them releasing a smoke stack attachment that's just a glorified smoke machine for the current cybercuck
(CW: SA)
By 2035 Elon will be in jail.
Since the second half of the 2010s, he's been promising investors that the "full self driving is next year", and the technology just isn't there, especially at consumer car prices.
Chinese electric cars are objectively better and cheaper than Tesla, and with Tesla relying on Chinese batteries and car parts, the impending economic war between the US and China will make it impossible for Tesla to manufacture and sell their cars at a competitive price point (if at all).
Tesla stock will sink, and then, investors will shift away the responsibility to the man that was demonstrably committing fraud by promising technology that didn't exist. Elon won't go to jail for being a sexual assaulter, or for destroying freedom of speech in his platform and pushing fascist talking points. He'll go to jail for making rich people lose money.
Tesla has been massively overvalued now for almost a decade, a stock deal for a real car company has always been a no-brainer. Not sure what would make Elon suddenly become intelligent enough to realize that fact.
Seems unlikely for either to succeed, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't try, I suppose.
The problem is Tesla's stock price needs to remain sky high for it to work. That means keeping the market thinking there's a massive innovation coming soon, something huge that Tesla will have a monopoly over. Originally it was electric cars, Elon needed to convince investors they were so far ahead that competition wouldn't catch up. Then it was a fully automated factory, then humanoid robots. Now it's full self driving.
A move to ICE cars, a much more competitive market with lower margins, will be a signal that Tesla is a normal company that should be valued as such. ICE cars are also more complicated and absolutely need a dealer network for repairs. Those dealers have tremendous power over the manufacturers, too. Doesn't seem like something Elon would sign up for.
