The Musk Credibility Market

 David Ingram writing for NBC:

 There’s a popular saying among fans of tech billionaire Elon Musk: Never bet against him.

But in the booming world of online prediction markets, some people are not only betting against Musk, but also bringing in big paydays doing so.

On the prediction market websites Kalshi and Polymarket, some bettors are making tens of thousands of dollars by wagering that Musk will fall short on his many ambitious — but so far unrealized — plans, including a robotaxi service in California and a third political party in the United States.

Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has for years issued sweeping public pronouncements on social media, podcasts and earnings calls. His track record is notoriously spotty, with his unfulfilled promises about self-driving cars becoming a meme in their own right. His car service in California still has humans in the driver’s seats, and his political party idea appears dormant. And yet he also oversaw the creation of reusable, self-landing rockets and the meteoric rise of Tesla.

Now, the accuracy of his bluster is getting tested in real time as prediction markets grow in popularity.

David Bensoussan, a Polymarket user whose account is No. 51 on the site’s all-time profits leaderboard (what many call a “whale” for their sizable bets) as of Friday, said he didn’t believe Musk when, during a rift with President Donald Trump last summer, he threatened to form a new political party. So, he bet nearly $10,000 that Musk wouldn’t follow through. He made a 10% return when Musk didn’t.

Bensoussan said he’s not a fan of Musk and takes some pleasure in winning bets against those who may have been seduced by the tech baron.

“He does have a solid fan base, and so if I can help separate them from some of their money, I’m always happy to do that,” he said in a phone interview from Europe, where he’s based.

 The Ingram piece is sharp and well reported, but there are a few points that, at the very least, need to be emphasized.

When we talk about examples of why you shouldn’t bet against Elon Musk and limit ourselves to reality-based incidents, pretty much all of them come from either early in the development of SpaceX or refer to the stock price of Tesla.

It’s possible that no company in history has better demonstrated the principle that the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. Over the past few years, the company has reached an insane valuation totally unmoored from any business fundamentals.

Other than market cap, the overwhelming majority of the claims Elon Musk has made about not just his two main companies but about XAI, Twitter, the Hyperloop, the Boring Company, DOGE, Optimus, etc., have been so far off the mark as to suggest either deliberate lying or a lack of any real relationship with the truth.

It's true that lots of traders have lost money shorting Tesla, but if you were betting against the actual claims behind Musk's enterprises, the odds have been remarkably good.