For the New York masses wrestling with affordability concerns, Mamdani pitched a message of hope. (Incidentally it was also the affordability platform on which Trump successfully crusaded in 2024.)
It is understandable that the masses bought it, while the clutch of elite investment bankers who sit atop billion-dollar organisations based in the epicentre of financial power, spent millions backing Mamdani’s adversaries.
But executing on the laudable campaign promises, once the joyous tears shed during Mamdani’s rousing victory speech dry, will be a test. So New Yorkers may be in for a reality check.
Elon Musk clearly wants to be the general of his army of robots.Credit: Getty
Meanwhile, Musk’s campaign – which is also high on promises – could be characterised as legal extortion.
Sure, it is about the potential upside financial rewards that Tesla shareholders would receive if he can meet his lofty financial goals. But it comes with an ominous warning about what Musk will/may do if he loses the shareholder vote – leave the company.
Tesla’s chairwomen, the Australian Robyn Denholm, has been selling the message of the risk of losing Musk as chief executive or at least having him diverted into other areas of his personal businesses.
It is further evidence of the degree to which it is a captive board and one that is convinced there is no greater tech entrepreneur in the world than Musk.
Sure, he got the first profitable electric vehicle company in the world off the ground, but his $US44 billion acquisition of Twitter, now called X, hasn’t been a financial triumph and his ambitious plans to populate the world with robots and self-driving taxis are very much a work in progress.
So attempting to jump over a series of financial hurdles, including increasing the company’s market capitalisation from today’s $US1.45 trillion ($2.2 trillion) to $US8.5 trillion seems like a stretch.
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It’s the metaphorical reinvention of the wheel, and the chances of that happening hinge on Musk pressing pause on his passion projects which include meddling in US government affairs, exterminating wokeness and supposedly saving Western civilisation. (Incidentally, one of his more recent distractions was taking pot-shots at Mamdani, branding him a “charismatic swindler” and urging New Yorkers to vote for political rival Andrew Cuomo.)
Governance experts and several large shareholders are not buying the message that Musk and Tesla’s board are selling, citing asymmetrical risks and massive shareholder dilution.
But there are still plenty (and probably most) shareholders who view him as a deity rather than deride him as a grotesque symbol of tech excess.
They bought into his visionary message and are sticking with it.
