Really? The stock is down about 20% since the beginning of this month. It already happened.
I want Tesla to succeed. I think the company has done a lot to make electric cars mainstream, at least in people's minds if not in their driveways. But I see no justification for Tesla having a market cap in the same range as GM, which sells 10 million cars per year, or Ford, which sells about 7 million cars per year. Tesla sells about 100k cars per year and is burning through money pretty fast. It might have made a positive contribution to society, but at the end of the day it's a money-losing company and the stock price is going to reflect that.
I don't think so. Musk doesn't seem like the type of person to compromise on a vision for a (relatively) small buyout. He'd have probably declined if given an offer.
Tesla has pushed the car industry forward decades in a few years. The big players were just competing in price and size of vehicles and never taking risks. Elon Musk has the vision and charisma to execute and move Tesla to the forefront of innovation, keeping everybody else in its toes trying to catch up. I don't think the market cap will fall anytime soon for this company.