Comment by dwroberts

He doesn't have infinite money, he is allowed to borrow infinite money thanks to the valuation of his holdings, which lately are weakening on the fundamentals.

Hence the shenanigans.

Some combination of never enough and the necessity of keeping the hot air balloon of his finances airborne.

I'm just waiting on the final merger with Tesla. The Tesla earnings release mentioned a big battery deal with xAI plus the previous Cybertruck deal with SpaceX so you know it's coming.

Musk has a lot of wealth, but to turn that into money he would have to sell his stock in his companies, causing him to lose majority ownership. Merging the money-losing xAI with the profitable SpaceX would allow him to use revenue from SpaceX to fund xAI without diluting his ownership.

to please one or another set of shareholders, to keep up his compensation, and to prop up bad decisions

Maybe he wants to go down in history as the first trillionaire. His wealth exploded during the pandemic, from about $25 billion to over $700 billion today. The trillion-dollar mark is in sight. He might be willing to sacrifice some long-term wealth if it means juicing the number now, so he has what seems like a permanent place in history.