Who's Actually Threatening Elon Musk's Empire in 2024?

Question

Elon Musk runs three companies simultaneously—a setup that sounds impressive until you realize the vulnerabilities multiply exponentially. Between Tesla, X (formerly Twitter), and SpaceX, there’s no shortage of competitors circling. Here’s who’s actually posed problems in 2024.

BYD: The EV Competitor Nobody Talks About

While Western investors obsess over Tesla, BYD is quietly dominating the electric vehicle market. The numbers are wild: through November 2023, BYD shipped over 2.8 million vehicles—surpassing Tesla’s entire annual output.

Tesla’s Model Y and Model 3 dominated by volume globally, but BYD controls 25% of China’s EV market alone. That’s more than double what Tesla manages in the same territory. BYD even operates in categories Tesla hasn’t fully penetrated (plug-in hybrids), giving them structural advantages in key markets. The gap is narrowing faster than most realize.

Apple vs. X: The App Store Standoff

Apple represents a different kind of threat to X. Musk has been vocal about Apple’s 30% commission rates on in-app purchases, but the real tension? Content moderation standards.

Musk wants looser guardrails on X. Apple demands strict ones and has precedent for enforcement—remember when it yanked Parler from the App Store in 2020 alongside Google? The same playbook exists for X. If Apple decides X violates its terms, removal becomes a real risk that could crater user acquisition overnight.

Amazon’s Starlink Paradox

Here’s where it gets weird: SpaceX is literally helping Amazon compete against itself. Through Project Kuiper, Amazon is building satellite-based internet to rival Starlink—and hired SpaceX to launch the rockets doing it.

It’s simultaneously a partnership and a battlefield. SpaceX maintains a massive lead over Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, but Project Kuiper represents the actual competitive threat. Musk profits from the launches while funding his own future competition. Strategic brilliance or long-term liability? Time will tell.

The Bottom Line

Musk’s juggling act works when he’s ahead. The moment any of these competitors gain serious ground—BYD scaling globally, Apple pulling the plug on X, Amazon’s Kuiper going live—the management bandwidth question becomes unavoidable.