Tesla shareholders on Thursday approved a plan that could make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire, two days after New Yorkers elected a tax-the-rich candidate as their next mayor.

These discrete moments offered strikingly different lessons about America and who deserves how much of its wealth.

At Tesla, based in the Austin, Texas, area, shareholders have largely bought into a winner-takes-all version of capitalism, agreeing by a wide margin to give Musk shares worth almost $1 trillion if the company under his management achieves ambitious financial and operational goals over the next decade.

But halfway across the country, in the home to Wall Street, Zohran Mamdani’s victory served as a reminder of the frustrations many Americans have with an economic system that has left them str

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