for a Trump contract, sure. that's why the example I gave was a Mayor. 1/

and the incentive also depends on unlikelihood. if the Mayor is likely to win reelection, prediction markets say 90%, there's an 11% return on what you bet to save him, less all the security costs, and a 900% return on what you bet to ensure he loses, less costs. that's an asymmetry! /fin

I hope it's possible. Everyone not horrible should absolutely divest from Tesla. Holding it is basically equivalent to holding $TRUMP. 1/

If there is a meaningful transition of power in the US, I don't see how an Democratic administration doesn't require more diversified ownership of SpaceX if it will continue to be an important government contractor. Or else, subsidize development of alternatives. 2/

The stakes are really high. Musk belongs in prison for violating a thousand procedures about handling government private and confidential data. Trump can pardon him, maybe, though if things go badly he may choose not to. 3/

Regardless, a sane administration, if one returns, would not want to truck with him. He has put his wealth if not his life fully on the line for all this. 4/

I hate to wish ill on another human, but this destruction he's wrought is a thing he's gone out of his way to wreak, and I hope he loses his dangerous bet. /fin

Tesla is a memecoin. It’s price is levered to Musk, not Tesla as a source of discounted cash flow. The biggest possible tragedy for Tesla shareholders is that it fall to conventional DCF valuations. That’s how they lose billions. 1/

Tesla can be very volatile, but the only way Tesla shareholders concede Musk has durably lost them billions is if he has lost his mystique. And if he has lost his mystique, he is no one, he is out of government, he’s the new Adam Neumann. 2/

But governments (not just the US, I suspect) will prop him up while SpaceX remains in his hands, because it is critical infrastructure to them. 3/

Tesla’s valuation and Musk’s wealth is protected in part by SpaceX’s moat, in part by the time it might take for his wealth to deflate and the damage he could do (eg electorally) in the meantime to those who cross him. (If you come for the king, you best not miss!) /fin

they don’t clip the top, and they don’t protect informational borders, so they have plutocrats relentlessly financing division among people with objectively common interests. 1/

you can have plutocrats and hierarchy enforced and sustained by social division, or democratic governance by something like a broad consensus. but the two regimes are oil and water. 2/

(it’s often a bad idea to reason from international experience as though nations are independent experiments.) /fin