Elon Musk Was Once Asked By OpenAI CEO Sam Altman: 'I Want To Be The Next Elon Musk. How Do I Do That?' — Here's What The Tesla Chief Said

Elon Musk recounted to Sam Altman his early focus areas—multiplanetary life, sustainable energy, internet, genetics and AI—and advised entrepreneurs to prioritize work that is ‘useful.’ The article chronicles Musk and Altman’s early collaboration to found OpenAI, Musk’s 2018 board exit, subsequent legal disputes and a dropped $97 billion 2025 bid for OpenAI, and the expanding rivalry between Musk’s companies (Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, Neuralink) and Altman’s OpenAI and space investments such as Stoke Space. Musk’s net worth is cited at $467 billion, and Benzinga notes positive technical performance for Tesla.

Analysis

Market structure: The public spat and divergent strategies between Musk and Altman accelerate concentration in AI compute and cloud services — clear winners are AI-infrastructure owners (GOOGL, AMZN, NVDA) and scale-driven EV/energy players (TSLA) while smaller AI app plays and cash-strapped space startups are likely to be diluted or acquired. Expect upward pricing power for GPUs/cloud capacity over 6–24 months (5–20% premium to prior contracts) and continued tightness in battery/critical minerals markets supporting commodity upside (Li, Cu). Cross-asset: tech equity vols and single-name options vols should rise 15–40% on headline risk; speculative credit in small-cap tech will widen 50–150bps in stress episodes.

Risk assessment: Tail risks include aggressive regulatory action (antitrust or AI safety rules) that could force structural changes within 6–18 months, large hostile bids/litigation (Musk’s past ~$97bn intent is precedent) that create acute systemic headline risk, and GPU supply shocks from China/export controls hurting training pipelines. Near-term (days) is headline-driven volatility; short-term (weeks–months) is capex and hiring shifts; long-term (years) is market-share consolidation in AI compute and EVs. Hidden dependency: AI growth is GPU-limited — revenue projections for software players are second-order to chip supply and cloud capacity.

Trade implications: Favor 6–24 month overweight to GOOG (cloud + AI stack) and TSLA (EV + storage vertical), underweight pure-play app/label-heavy AI startups. Use LEAPS to capture secular moves (12–24 months) and short 6–12 month exposure to small-cap AI names or ETFs with >30% prior YTD gains. Options: buy 60–120 day TSLA straddles around major Tesla events if IV < historical realized by ≥10%; otherwise implement cheapened bull call spreads for exposure.

Contrarian angles: The market underestimates that fragmentation (xAI vs OpenAI) increases total compute demand and thus benefits infra providers more than a sole monopoly would; regulatory fear could oversell AI-app equities while leaving infra names underbought. Historical parallel: platform consolidation in late-90s/early-00s where infrastructure winners (MSFT/CSCO analogs) captured outsized profits; unintended consequence: legal fights may create acquisition windows and dislocated prices offering 30–60% upside to patient buyers.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Establish a 2–3% portfolio long position in TSLA via equity or 12–24 month LEAPS (e.g., Jan 2027 calls) to capture EV/energy-storage upside; set tactical stop-loss at -15% and consider trimming on +40% move or after two consecutive quarters of negative delivery revisions.
• Allocate 1.5–2% to GOOGL via a 6–12 month bull-call spread (buy ATM calls, sell ~20% OTM calls) to express Google Cloud + AI-infrastructure exposure while capping premium; exit if sequential cloud revenue growth falls below 5% two quarters in a row.
• Buy a 0.5–1% portfolio-sized 60–120 day ATM straddle on TSLA ahead of the next major Tesla event/earnings only if implied volatility is at least 10% lower than 90-day realized vol; close the position within 7 days post-event or if IV collapses >30%.
• Reduce 2–4% exposure to small-cap AI/application names and reallocate into semiconductor/infra leaders (NVDA, AMZN, GOOGL) and select aerospace suppliers (RTX, LMT) to capture expected compute and space-capex reallocation over the next 6–18 months.