What is Tesla? Whatever suits Elon Musk at any given moment
Michael Burry, the fund manager on whom the film The Big Short (2015) was based and who became famous (and wealthy) for anticipating the subprime mortgage crisis, published on his blog in December 2025 his conviction that Tesla, Elon Musk’s electric vehicle and energy company, had been “ridiculously overvalued for a long time.” In his view, the company’s value to investors was only being diluted over time, in part by the exorbitant compensation paid to Musk, which does not match Tesla’s actual profits. Tesla’s stock has risen 115% over the past five years despite never having paid a dividend since its debut on the market a decade ago. Nearly six months have passed, but Burry’s thesis remains intact. In recent remarks he echoed a market rumor that Musk would use SpaceX’s initial public offering to merge it with Tesla, which would further dilute the value of a company that is currently the ninth-largest in the world by market capitalization ($1.64 trillion).

© Jiang Qiming (China News Service / VCG / Getty Images) (EL PAÍS)
