Elon Musk: The Great Charlatan
How Hype Fuels the World’s Most Polarizing Innovator
A charlatan is a person practicing quackery or a similar confidence trick in order to obtain money, power, fame, or other advantages through pretense or deception.
Introduction
Now we know why Zuckerberg turned over a new leaf.
With the possibility that Musk might buy TikTok, Zuckerberg is trying to get on the good side with the new administration. Currently, Zuckerberg owns the social media attention space.
To show this, here are the top social media platforms in the United States1:
Facebook: Approximately 221.71 million active users
Instagram: Around 180.77 million active users
TikTok: Approximately 140.44 million active users
X (formerly Twitter): About 126.39 million active users
With over 400 million users, Zukerberg is clearly king — however, if Musk does get TikTok, Musk would get significantly closer to catching Zukerberg.
While those addicted to TikTok prepare to fall at the knees of their new savior, Musk, let’s remember one critical fact about Elon:
He’s the greatest charlatan in modern history.
The Making of Musk: From Lineage to Legacy
James Corbett has done phenomenal work on Elon’s rise to fame, which you can see here. It’s an hour long, so watch it when you have some time:
A critical point to call out is that Elon’s lineage set him up for success — just like Gates’s mother did Bill. Mama boys?
Fun fact: Elon’s grandpa on his mother’s side, Dr. Joshua Norman Haldeman, was a former director of Technocracy Incorporated. Technocracy was a social movement active in the United States and Canada in the 1930s that favored technocracy as a system of government over representative democracy and concomitant partisan politics.
With the overwhelmingly positive PR Musk has received from the mainstream media over the years and Marvel blending him as the real-life Tony Stark, Musk has a massive following behind him.
But let’s poke the holes in this emperor’s clothes.
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The Sorcery of Tesla: Overvaluation and Musk’s Magic Tricks
One of Musk’s greatest feats is that the Tesla company is incredibly overvalued and funded by the power of marketing. Here are some market numbers to show how the stock price is overrated.
As of January 14, 2025, Tesla’s stock is trading at approximately $400.51 per share. There are 3.1 billion shares outstanding. (This number includes all shares available and held by investors).
Investors invest in the company because they believe it will grow.
Here are some more stock market magic numbers.
Tesla’s P/E Ratio: Tesla’s P/E ratio is often significantly higher than the average for traditional automakers, which typically fall in the range of 5-15. Tesla’s P/E ratio has sometimes exceeded 100, indicating that investors are willing to pay a steep price for each dollar of Tesla’s earnings.
Tesla’s P/S Ratio: Tesla’s P/S ratio is notably higher than legacy automakers, which usually trade between 0.2 and 1. Tesla’s ratio often exceeds 5, reflecting the market’s anticipation of significant revenue growth.
Tesla’s Market Cap: Tesla’s market cap often surpasses the combined market cap of several legacy automakers (e.g., Toyota, Volkswagen, and Ford) despite producing a fraction of their vehicle volume.
With all the bigwigs stock market folk increasing the value of Tesla, you would think that Tesla was bringing in so much money, right? Wrong.
Tesla’s Growth: While Tesla has demonstrated strong revenue growth, its profit margins and net income are not yet consistently comparable to those of established automakers.
To confirm, Musk’s company, Tesla, is producing fewer cars than competitors with inconsistent profit margins, but it’s valued significantly higher than its competitors.
This feat alone is true sorcery.
Then there’s the fact that Teslas — and all-electric cars — contribute to destroying the Earth.
There’s also Neuralink and how he wants to put chips in your brain. Yet, conveniently, everyone seemed to forget that, especially in this election cycle.
These are all the tricks Musk has pulled over the public. But the biggest magical move of all is SpaceX.
Musk’s Greatest Trick: SpaceX and the Power of Belief
I’ve written a plethora about SpaceX, as this is what catapulted Elon to his elite status. SpaceX is the greatest example of the power of belief I have written about.
Just as billions of dollars have been invested in Tesla because of the belief that its valuation is justified, billions have been invested in SpaceX due to the belief in space exploration, rooted in our “historic” journey to the moon.
To profit from this consistently and get billions of dollars pumped into your campaign, it takes an amazing amount of sorcery to get this done.
And this is what Musk has done time and time again.
If Fauci belongs in the Overlord Hall of Fame for convincing the world of two pandemics — due to the belief in a virus that does not exist — Elon is a first-ballot hall of famer due to the amount of hard-earned dollars he moves based on his Midas touch persona.
Who knows if this deal will go through, but the takeaway is that the great charlatan is at it again.
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Notes and References
https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/united-states-social-media-statistics/
I just published my list of Substack’s “Top 137 Covid Contrarians and Freedom Writers.” Some Substack readers might be interested in this information, which might be a good resource for those on “our side.” FWIW, this newsletter made the list.
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/the-top-100-covid-contrarianfreedom
God bless the USA and the 4th Reich!