Elon Musk Made 53-Year-Old Colorado Couple Rich. Now He’s The Biggest Risk To Their Retirement

Elon Musk Made 53-Year-Old Colorado Couple Rich. Now He’s The Biggest Risk To Their Retirement · 24/7 Wall St.

AJ Tiarsmith

Mon, August 3, 2026 at 5:12 PM GMT+3 5 min read

Quick Read

SpaceX and TSLA consume 70% of their $7M liquid portfolio, creating dangerous concentration inside a single billionaire's ecosystem.
Despite a $9.8M net worth, only $70,000 in cash and a $500,000 margin loan leave them one downturn away from a forced sale.
Without Roth conversions, their first RMD at 73 hits $850,000, pushing them into the 32 to 37 percent federal bracket and costing over $1.1M in lifetime taxes.
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In 2012, Carl put roughly $2,000 into Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) at about $2 per share, betting on "some random dude with a funny name." Fourteen years later, that decision plus a SpaceX stake gave a Colorado couple in their early fifties a $9.8 million net worth. It's also the biggest threat to their retirement.

The story aired August 3, 2026, when Brian Preston and Bo Hanson of The Money Guy Show reviewed the finances of Mindy Jensen, 53, of BiggerPockets Money, and her husband Carl, 52, a retired software developer. The on-paper numbers are extraordinary. The structure underneath is not.

An Almost-Deca-Millionaire Portfolio With One Big Problem

Their liquid portfolio sits just under $7 million, with the top five holdings accounting for roughly 86% of it: about $4 million in SpaceX, $850,000 in Tesla, roughly $500,000 in Meta (NASDAQ:META), plus positions in Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN). SpaceX and Tesla combined make up roughly 70% of the liquid portfolio. Diversifying inside Elon Musk's orbit isn't diversification. The SPAC and New Issue ETF (NYSEARCA:SPCX) is down roughly 31% in a single month heading into August.

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Tesla is down about 31% year to date, with Q2 operating margin compressed to roughly 1% and free cash flow of negative $1.09 billion. The stock trades at more than 300 times earnings. Alphabet trades near 16 times, with a 33% operating margin. The gap between what Tesla must deliver and what a diversified peer already delivers is the concentration case in one sentence.

The Liquidity Trap Behind a $9.8M Net Worth

Cash on hand: $70,000, falling after a recent construction bill. Bo Hanson called it "a rounding error" against a near-eight-figure net worth. Annual spending runs $65,000 to $100,000, so that reserve covers roughly one year of expenses with seven more years of tuition ahead and no 529 funded.

They're building a roughly $1 million home, financed with a $400,000 personal loan from a friend and an active $500,000 margin loan through Robinhood at 4.25% variable. In 2022, a downturn shrank their margin cushion from roughly $1 million to about $200,000, nearly triggering a forced sale. They opened a HELOC to bail out the margin balance. Preston's warning was blunt: margin loans and HELOCs are "access to cash," not cash itself, and they disappear exactly when markets are stressed.

The "Die With Zero" Contradiction

The couple says they've embraced Bill Perkins' Die With Zero. Preston pushed back on camera: "I think y'all say on paper you have a 'die with zero' mentality, but when I look at how you're structured, it's more of, 'Hey, die with as much as possible.'". Asked if she feels wealthy, Mindy answered "No." Carl compared the psychology to a "monkey trap": the same grip that built the wealth prevents him from loosening it.

The Tax Bomb at Age 73

RMD age is 73 under SECURE 2.0. Money Guy's modeling showed that doing nothing produces a first full RMD of roughly $850,000 in one year, pushing them into the 32% to 37% federal brackets plus Colorado's flat state tax. The fix: systematic Roth conversions each year up to the top of the 22% bracket, roughly $211,000 converted annually, adding about $60,000/year to the current tax bill until age 75. Result: the first full RMD drops from $850,000 to roughly $300,000, adds nearly $3 million in present-value inheritance, and cuts lifetime tax by more than $1.1 million present-value. The catch: Roth conversions require cash to pay the tax now, and cash is what this balance sheet lacks.

What to Do When the Winning Bet Becomes the Risk

Money Guy's homework list is the right template for anyone in this situation:

Build cash toward roughly $500,000, about 5% of a $10 million net worth.
"Dollar-cost divest": sell a fixed dollar amount of concentrated Tesla and SpaceX positions on an automated schedule to strip out emotion and market timing.
Diversify beyond 100% equities into munis or bonds; the 10-year Treasury at 4.68% is a real alternative.
Run an October or November tax projection every year to size Roth conversions to the 22% bracket rather than forcing them in high-income years.
Gift appreciated shares to the daughters now (basis carries over; low-bracket kids may pay 0% long-term capital gains), and open a donor-advised fund to "bunch" charitable deductions.

The common mistake is doing nothing because the capital gains bill looks painful. A 30% to 50% drawdown in a concentrated position dwarfs the tax cost of trimming it. Tesla's 27% drop in a single month this summer is a reminder that the exit door narrows when everyone reaches for it at once. Winning the game requires different decisions than the ones that won it.

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