Elon Musk’s Controversial Politics: Beyond the Financials

As U.S. President Trump signed his “Big Beautiful Bill” into law on July 4, 2025, Elon Musk, shareholder and CEO of Tesla, announced that he would create a new political party (or “group” in European-speak). Musk opposed the projected trillions of dollars that the bill would add to the debt held by the U.S. federal government, though, as CEO of SpaceX, he was fine with cutting a trillion dollars from Medicaid, which provides health coverage to the poorest of the poor, and from food assistance while the defense budget was augmented. Musk’s proposed “America” group would likely draw support from Trump’s “MAGA” base, rather than from moderate Republicans and any Democrats. Whether Musk was more motivated by breaking up the political duopoly of the two major parties, or groups, to increase the practical options for voters or to split Trump’s support and punish the Republican party, such controversial political involvement by a major shareholder CEO is without doubt risky business. This is not to say that CEO’s should not be active politically apart from business strategy, for even business managers are citizens and thus may feel compelled to become active politically. This is to be lauded especially if the motive is out of duty to repair or otherwise improve a political system.

On the next working day after Musk’s announcement that he would be forming a new political party, “Tesla shares plunged nearly 7 percent . . . as investors registered dismay” at Musk’s “plans to form a third party and his intensifying feud with President Trump.”[1] Even though 7% is not exacting “plunging” or “crushing” Testa shares, beyond the hyperbole of journalists is the point that not avoiding controversy politically has costed Tesla and Musk himself financially. To be sure, billionaires can afford to lose significant wealth and still be left standing comfortably, and even in the case of business practitioners, economic reductionism doesn’t always hold. Also, political involvement can raise stock prices, as, for example, “Musk’s involvement in politics and his financial support for the president’s campaign were once seen by investors as a benefit to Tesla, fueling a steep rise in company shares after the election” in November, 2024.[2] No one but the most cynical would deny, however, that Musk’s chief motivation that led to his involvement in “DOGE” in the White House was for his businesses to benefit even though they did, initially. So that they took a hit when Musk broke from President Trump and then formed the America Party cannot be assessed only as concerns the financial impact on Tesla or SpaceX.

In American history, the notion that wealthy people should devote some time to public service for the benefit of the Union or their respective member-states was once well-known. Both because such people could afford financially to take time off from business and because their experience could be useful in governing, the notion of public duty was beneficial to the public good. Men like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington did not make public service into a career and did not go into politics primarily for its positive financial benefit. As a frustrated General dependent on the sovereign states whose delegates met in the Second Continental Congress, Washington would not have endured such hardships as he did were his motivation simply to benefit himself and his landholdings in Virginia financially. Even though Musk is by no stretch another Washington, more has been involved in Musk’s political motivation than maximizing Tesla’s stock price or gaining government contracts for SpaceX, and even getting back at Donald Trump. Government, moreover, is not just the aggregate of business interests without remainder.

Other billionaires might look to Musk’s example not in terms of his political ideology necessarily, but in terms of having enough financial cushion to weather political-turned-financial pushback from going beyond business to engage in public service—to give back, as it were, so to improve the system of government and add to the public good. It is admittedly very easy to be guided by personal and business financial considerations in delving into politics, whereas being willing to hold those at bay out of a sense of public duty is more difficult, and, frankly, increasing rare as American history has proceeded but not necessarily evolved politically. The notion that duty pertains to citizenship has become increasingly recessive in public discourse and consciousness. This is to say that duty-bound CEO’s are saints; rather, it is to say that we shouldn’t be so surprised when a billionaire businessman jumps into politics not merely for financial reasons, and thus not turn back to shore after a financial hit. Even if motivated by political ideology rather than in saving the union from itself (e.g., public debt), personal and business financial benefit is not the whole story, and the public good can still be a beneficiary. 

Mozi says, "'worthy people [are] those who are well versed in virtuous conduct, discriminating in discussion, and broadly knowledgeable!’ . . . . When the wealthy and eminent in the state heard this they retired and thought to themselves, ‘At first, we could rely on our wealth and eminence, but now the king promotes the righteous and does not turn away the poor and the humble. This being the case, we too must be righteous.'"[3]

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1. Jack Ewing, “Musk’s Idea of 3^rd Party Is Crushing Testla Shares,” The New York Times, July 8, 2025.

2. Ibid.

3. Philip J. Ivanhoe and Bryan W. Van Norden, ed.s, Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy (New York: Seen Bridges Press, 2001), 58.

Executive Compensation Tied to Firm Performance: A Critique

With robust economies in America boosting companies’ sales, corporate tax cuts, and an increase in stock buybacks lifting stock prices in 2018, the default mantra in executive compensation circles that high CEO pay is justified if it is tied to firm performance could be questioned. Similarly, the typical assumption that high pay would have to get higher for a CEO to be motivated to do the basics of the job, including overseeing mergers and acquisitions, (or that doing the basics warrants a raise) could be questioned. Particularly in 2018, the comfortable, self-serving ways of the business elite in the U.S. were ripe for critique.

An analysis by The New York Times shows that the medium compensation for CEOs in 2018 was $18.6 million, which represents a raise of $1.1 million, or 6.3%, from 2017.[1] Meanwhile, the average private-sector worker got a 3.2% raise, which translates into 84 cents per hour. In short, the CEO compensation increased at almost twice the rate of ordinary wages. The question is whether the increase was justified or a matter of the American business elite taking care of their own.

Years earlier, Congress had given shareholders of American companies a “special but nonbinding vote” on the ratio of a CEO’s pay to that of the medium employee.[2] The nonbinding feature meant, however, that populism would have no weight in corporate boardrooms. If lawmakers had been motivated by corporate campaign contributions, the nonbinding nature of the vote suffered from the start from a conflict of interest exploited by the political and business elites.

Even the (pro-active?) response of corporate boards to pressure from some shareholders and advisory firms is problematic even though it seems to make sense from business perspective. Boards have been tying more of a CEO’s pay to the company’s financial performance as if the CEO has a big impact as distinct from structural forces such as a good economy or a tax cut that help companies’ bottom lines and stock prices. Boards “continue to act as if C.E.O.s have unique powers to deliver better returns.”[3]  

For example, Testla’s board approved compensation as much as $2.3 billion for Elon Musk, the CEO. To be sure, the company’s market value would have to increase 18 times to $650 billion for Musk to see get all “the options in the award.”[4] The board members tied the high compensation to company performance so he would “devote his time and energy” in Tesla rather than “wander to his other ventures, like SpaceX, or that he could leave Tesla altogether.”[5] As pointed out by the Times, this logic is flawed, for he already “owned roughly a fifth of Tesla, [so] his financial interests were already strongly aligned with the company,” according to Analysts for Institutional Shareholder Services.[6] Additionally, a highly paid CEO (without counting the 2018 award, had it been awarded) should be expected to be motivated by the high pay alone (without a 6% raise) to devote a lot of time and energy to the job. To be sure, Musk was at the time considered a visionary at the company. However, using tied-to-firm-performance to motivate him to show up each workday suggests that the criterion or basis undergirding executive compensation is problematic—and this doesn’t even take into account the matter of getting compensated more because of a tax cut or a strong economy, neither of which a CEO should get credit unless he or she had made the political contribution that got the corporate tax cut passed.

[1] Peter Eavis, “It’s Never Been Easier to Be a C.E.O., and the Pay Keeps Rising,” The New York Times, May 24, 2019.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.