Smith: It’s good to be the $50B man

“Outta’ My Mind on a Monday Moanin’”

As tough as it has been for me to understand how Tesla could possibly have a greater market value than General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. without making a penny on the cars it sells, even losing as much as $8,000 per car it sells and about to lose its federal cushion forwarded its way in the early development of “energy-efficient” cars, as many other well-known international brands are about to get those same spiffs Tesla is about to run out of, Tesla shareholders have just approved a new hefty pay package for their leader.

Apparently, happily.

Proving once again it’s good to be Elon Musk. (Are you sitting down?)

His new pay package could yield P. T. Barnum, er, ah, rather, Mr. Musk $50,000,000,000!

I had to look two or three times to double check that figure. It’s right. Fifty billion dollars. Plenty of hoops to jump through and numbers to hit before he would make that kind of money. He might even have to come up with a car he doesn’t lose money on every time he sells one. But I didn’t see that stated anywhere.

I used to call Mr. Musk the modern day P.T. Barnum. Then I saw the film about Mr. Barnum called “The Greatest Showman.”

I then realized that calling Elon Musk “P. T. Barnum” was a disservice.

To both men.

(P.S.: Giving credit where credit is due, Mr. Musk seems to do really well with rockets.)

■Speaking of cars, wake up with me on the radio Wednesday and Thursday morning from 5:30 to 9 a.m. on AM 760, WJR and you’ll be waking up in the middle of the New York International Auto Show.

Paul W. Smith is host of The Paul W. Smith Show on WJR-AM (760) from 5:30-9 a.m. Monday-Friday.