Michael Burry says Elon Musk is a true visionary — but the future he’s building is much further away than he thinks.
“Elon is an American treasure but also a desperately incentivized futurist even earlier than me,” the investor of “The Big Short” fame posted on X late Thursday.
Burry, known for making premature but ultimately correct predictions, likely meant the Tesla and SpaceX CEO stands to profit enormously from his vision becoming reality, so he’s highly motivated to hype it as much as he can.
“I am glad he is here in America,” Burry wrote on his Substack. “He will go down in history like PT Barnum and Thomas Edison,” he added, referring to the legendary showman and founder of the Barnum & Bailey Circus, and the iconic inventor who helped refine the electric light bulb.
Futurists are “always decades early, even earlier than I am,” Burry continued. “And since they sell self-evident futures with indefinite timelines, they can raise capital.”
Burry attached a link to an article about Musk reportedly exploring a merger between SpaceX and either or both of his other main companies, Tesla and xAI.
SpaceX was valued at $800 billion in a private share sale in December, Tesla has a $1.3 trillion market capitalization, and xAI was valued at $230 billion in a November fundraising round.
Burry said it “did not take a futurist to know this was coming,” and the market had already priced in a potential combination. He added that $1.6 trillion “more than encompasses” what the trio are worth today, even accounting for their future value.
The value investor, who recently shifted from running a hedge fund to writing on Substack, wrote that Tesla was “ridiculously overvalued” in a December post. He also warned that Musk’s $1 trillion pay package would continue to dilute the company’s shares.
That historic compensation deal underpins why Musk is so driven to market his vision and work toward realizing it. He’s required to hit several milestones by 2035 to receive the full share allotment; those include raising Tesla’s market value to $8.5 trillion, delivering 1 million robots, and bringing 1 million robotaxis into commercial service.
As for Musk’s grand vision, he’s repeatedly said he intends for humanity to colonize Mars in his lifetime. Moreover, he recently recommended people not save for retirement in 10 or 20 years, as he expects advances in AI, energy, and robotics to generate so many resources for all that nobody will need a nest egg.
Burry has butted heads with Musk over the years. In 2021, he took aim at Tesla for its reliance on government subsidies and Musk for paring his stake in the EV maker.
Musk responded by writing: “Burry is a broken clock.” He also teased Burry in 2022 about his previous short bet against Tesla.
Musk hasn’t responded to any of Burry’s recent X posts, and did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
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