In 2002, PayPal went public and swiftly was bought by eBay in a $1.4 billion stock deal. Mr. Musk’s net worth skyrocketed, but only after he risked much of his wealth on a business that few thought had a chance of succeeding.
Mr. Musk again put most of his gains to work, with investments in Solar City, SpaceX and Tesla. At present, Solar City’s market cap is in the $2 billion range, SpaceX is estimated to be worth $100 billion, and Tesla is valued by investors at almost $1 trillion—but they’re all speculative concepts, like PayPal. The companies’ market capitalizations bear this out. While debate rages about markets’ efficiency or lack thereof, no one disputes that $20 lying on the ground won’t last long. Multibillion-dollar market-share endeavors disappear even faster, unless they’re unknown, ridiculed as unnecessary, or seen as impossible.
This is worth remembering when considering Mr. Musk’s purchase of Twitter. His much-publicized bid stirred little competition, perhaps because some feared getting into a bidding war with someone of his net worth. But a more realistic scenario is that Mr. Musk sees possibilities for Twitter that the rest of us don’t—possibilities so distant from the Twitter we know that Mr. Musk is taking the underperforming social-media company private—at least for a few years—to put his contrarian stamp on it.
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