In February 2023 California governor Gavin Newsom and Elon Musk stood side by side at a press conference celebrating Tesla’s new AI innovation lab in Palo Alto. They traded jokes about a $100,000 deposit Newsom had made on a Tesla Roadster, the first electric car the company produced. “That was a lot of money in 2007,” Musk, now the richest man in the world, said. “It’s still a lot of money,” Newsom replied. “Trust me, brother, you haven’t looked at my salary.” That was the high-water mark of