NEW YORK — As SpaceX and Tesla have swelled into a combined $3 trillion force in global markets, a growing number of corporate governance experts and Wall Street analysts are raising alarms over a risk hiding in plain sight: neither company has a clear plan for what happens if Elon Musk can no longer lead them.
Ahead of its blockbuster initial public offering in June, SpaceX described Musk in regulatory filings as the “driving force behind our growth, innovation, and operational success,” warning that his loss “whether due to death, disability, or otherwise … could significantly disrupt our management structure.” The disclosure, a standard feature of corporate filings known as “key person risk,” understates the scale of the dilemma at the center of Musk’s business empire.
Tesla, valued at $1 trillion, sits among the largest constituents of both the Nasdaq 100 and the S&P 500, the benchmark index most widely tracked by retirement savers and passive investors. SpaceX, now valued at nearly $2 trillion following its record-breaking June IPO, has already secured fast-tracked entry to the Nasdaq and could join the S&P 500 as early as mid-2027, a move that would expose millions of additional index-fund investors to the company.
Dan Ives, a veteran technology analyst and one of Musk’s most prominent supporters on Wall Street, said the concentration of value around a single individual cuts both ways for investors.
“There’s only one Elon Musk, and they’re not going to create another one of him,” Ives said, describing the dynamic as “a blessing and a curse” given how closely investor confidence in the companies is tied to confidence in Musk personally.
Much of the roughly $3 trillion in combined market value carried by Tesla and SpaceX reflects what market watchers have informally dubbed the “Musk multiple” — a premium investors are willing to pay based on Musk’s ability to rally enthusiasm behind ambitious, often unproven goals, from orbital data centers to Mars colonization to mass production of humanlike robots, a vision he reiterated this week during a speech at the G20 Summit in North Carolina.
That premium is no longer confined to Musk’s most devoted followers. Because index funds are structurally required to hold shares of companies included in the benchmarks they track, millions of ordinary 401(k) holders now carry exposure to Tesla and, increasingly, SpaceX, regardless of their personal views on Musk. The Nasdaq alone hosts more than 200 index-tracking products, including the Invesco QQQ Trust and the iShares Nasdaq 100 ETF, together holding more than $800 billion in assets.
Tim Quigley, a professor of strategic leadership and governance at the International Institute for Management Development, said the market has not fully priced in what could happen if Musk were suddenly unable to lead his companies.
“It would be massive because so many people believe that his entire empire is just him,” Quigley said, adding that he believes “the market is probably underpricing the risk.”
Ross Gerber, co-founder of investment firm Gerber Kawasaki, offered a starker assessment in comments to The Information earlier this year, describing Musk as SpaceX’s single greatest vulnerability.
“I think with stocks like SpaceX, for example, a good trillion dollars of value is just … Elon,” Gerber said, warning that the company has “no succession plan” and “no future if he dies.”
SpaceX and Tesla did not respond to requests for comment.
Mary-Hunter McDonnell, an associate professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, said Musk’s companies exemplify a broader trend among technology firms of allowing founders to become irreplaceable centers of corporate value.
“What we see are more and more companies that allow the founder to entrench themselves as the central vehicle for value in the firm,” McDonnell said, pointing to governance structures in the tech sector that offer “very few checks and balances” against that risk.
Musk, who founded SpaceX in 2002, controls roughly 48% of the company through a combination of publicly traded Class A shares and privately held Class B “super-voting” shares reserved for insiders. That structure gives Musk effective control of SpaceX’s board, meaning he can be removed from leadership only by his own decision. The company has not disclosed a formal succession plan, nor does it maintain key-person life insurance covering Musk, according to its IPO prospectus, which stated that identifying a successor “with the combination of skills and experience possessed by Mr. Musk” could prove “lengthy and uncertain.”
At Tesla, Musk has never publicly outlined a formal succession plan, though he told The Wall Street Journal in 2023 that he had identified “particular individuals” to the board who could take over the company “if something happens to me unexpectedly.” Musk, 55, retains senior lieutenants at both companies capable of managing day-to-day operations during his periodic absences, including during his time leading a push to shrink federal government employment under the Trump administration in early 2025. Craig Crossland, dean of Texas Christian University’s Neeley School of Business, said it remains unclear whether Musk’s distinctive leadership approach has been meaningfully passed on to those deputies.
Analysts and governance experts interviewed on the topic consistently pointed to one historical parallel: Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who died in 2011 at age 56. Like Musk, Jobs was widely seen as a singular figure whose identity was inseparable from his company’s fortunes. Apple’s stock proved highly sensitive to rumors about Jobs’ health following his 2004 cancer diagnosis, and a fabricated report of his death in 2008 briefly sent Apple shares tumbling 9%.
Tesla has shown similar sensitivity to headlines involving Musk. Shares fell after Musk told The New York Times in 2018 that he was working “120 hour weeks” while relying on the sleep medication Ambien amid intense scrutiny of the company. In early 2025, as Musk’s attention shifted toward his government efficiency initiative in Washington, Tesla shares lost nearly half their value between January and April.
Unlike Musk, Jobs took succession planning seriously behind the scenes, establishing an internal executive training initiative known as “Apple University” years before his death to help preserve his vision for the company. By the time Jobs stepped down as Apple’s chief executive in August 2011, his handpicked successor, Tim Cook, was already a familiar, steadying presence to Wall Street. Apple shares dipped only briefly, by about 5%, before recovering.
Ives said the succession question surrounding Musk’s companies cannot be deferred indefinitely, even if it remains a secondary concern for most investors today.
“A succession plan at one point is going to have to be addressed,” Ives said, adding that investors understand the risk exists even as it stays largely in the background of their decision-making.
