Link copied to clipboard. Elon Musk attends the finals for the NCAA wrestling championship, Saturday, March 22, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, file) President Donald Trump, left, and Elon Musk talk during a memorial for Charlie Kirk, Sunday, Sept. 21, 2025, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File) Key Points Despite facing challenges like shrinking profits and lawsuits, Elon Musk's wealth has increased significantly, with Tesla shareholders set to approve a potential trillion-dollar pay package. Tesla's earnings slumped 37% in Q3, as boycotts due to Musk's political stance have affected car sales, though some investors remain optimistic about future technological innovations. Musk's robotaxi initiative has faced scrutiny from regulators, with multiple investigations launched this year regarding its self-driving software and related accidents. Investors continue to support Musk, betting on his ability to deliver on ambitious promises, leading Tesla's stock to trade at significantly higher multiples than other companies. This time a year ago Musk was telling investors sales could grow 20% to 30%. The stock fell earlier this year as the bad news piled up. But after Musk appeared in the Oval Office in May for his farewell to DOGE sporting a shiner, it has doubled and is now posting a year-to-date gain of nearly 9% after the close of regular trading Wednesday. His net worth has also jumped — up $62 billion this year to $483 billion, according to Forbes magazine. Investors are mostly buying Musk's line that plunging car sales don't matter as much now because the future of the company lies more with his new driverless robotaxis service, the energy storage business and building robots for the home and factory. To make his task worth while, Tesla’s directors are asking shareholders to sign off on his enormous new pay package at an annual meeting next month. But there are big questions surrounding these endeavors, particularly the driverless cabs. Musk's robotaxis, which began picking up passengers in Austin, Texas, and San Francisco this summer, can’t yet be called driverless because they still require “safety monitors” who are ready to seize control in case something goes wrong, which occasionally happens. One of them drove down the opposing lane, for example. The robotaxi plans need approval from regulators in various states even as the ones in Washington have swarmed the company. They've opened four investigations into Tesla so far this year, including one into why it hasn't reported accidents involving its self-driving software quickly to the government as required. Another launched earlier this month is looking into dozens of reported accidents in which Teslas using self-driving software ran red lights and broke other traffic rules, occasionally crashing into other vehicles and causing injuries. Musk has disappointed before, talking big and missing deadlines repeatedly, only to deliver for shareholders eventually. Tesla investors who held on through a tough 2018 as the company struggled to produce its Model 3 vehicle at a profit, eventually saw their stock soar as sales jumped. One money manager who rode that earlier surge then bought again earlier this year, says she’s confident Musk's magic is still there and he can pull off the seemingly impossible again. “He frequently teeters on the edge of disaster,” said Nancy Tengler in a statement, “and then pulls back just in the nick of time.” One difference now is most other Tesla investors also believe this and have bought up the stock, leaving little room for error. Shares of U.S. companies in the S&P 500 index are valued at 24 times what investors expect them to earn next year. By contrast, Tesla is trading at 250 times expected profits, enough to make you believe that Musk, instead of having a very bad year is having a spectacular one.