Robert Cyran

The cupboard staple holds a lesson for the likes of Nvidia. ​During a 2005 supply ​squeeze, drugmakers dependent on the spice ⁠cornered the market. Concerns are ​rising on energy and helium ​for chips. Industries that add value will outbid others, spurring unconventional new sources.

President Trump brags about empty inbound ‌tankers seeking to stock up on supplies. More demand, however, will lead to higher prices. The easy populist ​answer is to stop 4 mln barrels ​of crude from leaving the country daily. It ⁠also would cause huge distortions at home ​and abroad.

Hardware chief John Ternus is next ​up to lead the $4 ​trln company. He succeeds a ⁠maestro of operations, from supply ​chains to an orderly ​handover. Yet the firm grew ever more reliant on the iPhone. The ​new boss’s task is ​to milk old success while delivering ‌one ⁠more thing.

That’s what the tech tycoon ​thinks his company should ​be worth in its upcoming ⁠IPO. The rocket, communications ​satellites and artificial intelligence ​businesses perhaps justify half that sum. The rest depends on investors ​believing Elon Musk can ​conjure up heavenly new markets.

Elon Musk’s rockets-to-chatbots outfit has excess ‌computing power, so will supply some to the Claude lab. Yet its $250 bln xAI unit is now an ​ugly hybrid, expensive versus middlemen like CoreWeave ​and a model-maker also-ran next to Meta. Chalk ⁠up another wrinkle for its mega-IPO.

By ⁠conventional measures, ​the SpaceX rockets, ​satellites and AI don’t add up to anything ​near the ​IPO’s targeted $1.75 trln valuation. A ‌new ⁠interactive Breakingviews calculator allows users to work out ​what proportion ​is ⁠being ascribed to colonizing ​Mars and other ​moonshots.

The soon-to-list rocket-maker’s joint ambitions ​with the electric-car giant, ​plus Elon Musk’s habit of ⁠buying his own firms, ​up the odds of ​a multi-trillion-dollar tie-up. His hefty stakes are bolstered by Texas law: ​a Tesla shareholder might ​need some $50 bln of stock to ‌sue.

Few harness tech hype and greed like Elon Musk, a ​modern alloy of Wernher ​von Braun and PT Barnum. Despite ⁠a crazed valuation, shares in ​his rockets-to-chatbot firm leapt 11% on ​launch. That sets the stage for other debutants to put a market value on ​humanity’s salvation or doom.

As his rocket-maker’s shares soar, Elon Musk’s wealth now stands at $1.4 trln. That’s 4% ​of US GDP, more than ​double Gilded Age titan John D ⁠Rockefeller’s hoard. The power this ​offers, even over governments, is immense. Yet ​it may prove more fleeting than empires of old.

Shale companies can drill wells quickly ​when prices spike. Yet ​when Iran presented the opportunity, ⁠they chose profit over ramping ​US production above 14 ​mln barrels a day. Exxon and Chevron revealed preferences for grinding out ​asset values from a ​mature industry.