Iran may decide that killing Americans is the best way to retaliate
The US president has given the Iranians a choice: negotiate or face devastating escalation.
The next move is down to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
He has spent his entire life trying to roll back American power and influence in the region.
Expecting him to negotiate with the US now, with B-2 bombers held to his head, is a tall order.
More likely, he will order some kind of retaliation – at least for now.
He will want to deter Donald Trump from launching more attacks and may calculate that killing Americans is the best way of doing so.
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Hegseth: ‘World should listen to Trump’
The ayatollah knows that could drive a wedge between Trump and his MAGA supporters, who say America is getting drawn into yet another Middle Eastern war, risking US lives.
There are plenty of US targets for Iran to aim at, with bases throughout the Middle East: in Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.
The Iranians could attack them directly with drones and missiles, or use proxies in the region, Iran-backed militias in Iraq, or the Houthis, based in Yemen.
Iran could threaten shipping and the oil industry in the Persian Gulf. If the Gulf becomes a war zone, expect a big hit to the global economy and the price of oil to rocket.
But all that would invite massive retaliation from the US. The Trump administration has spelt that out in no uncertain terms.
America has sent an awesome amount of firepower to the region: three aircraft carrier groups bristling with fighter jets and submarines loaded with cruise missiles.
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So the Iranians may instead go for the kind of asymmetric warfare they excel at. The UK could be in the firing line too. We could see Iranian terrorist attacks here in Britain.
One way or another, this is almost certain to escalate, but could it widen and draw other countries into the conflict?
Russia and Iran have a strategic partnership agreement, but it doesn’t require Russia to come to Tehran’s support.
Iran is also China’s closest ally in the Middle East, but Beijing is also likely to sit this one out and watch from the sidelines.
Wars have unintended consequences, but there are strong reasons for other powers to avoid becoming involved in this one.
Read more:
What we know about US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities
Iran may still have ability to make nuclear bomb
Looking further ahead, there are two competing priorities to watch. For Iran’s leadership, it is all about survival, to absorb the blows and live to fight another day, and eventually build the bomb if it can, to stop this ever happening to them again.
And Israel is equally determined that will not happen.
One method would be regime change in Iran, but its leadership is proving resilient so far, despite the mounting challenges it faces.
Instead, Israel faces a long period of managing the threat posed by Iran.
It will need to monitor the Iranians, watching for signs they are developing their missile programme, meddling in the region or reviving their nuclear project, and cut them down to size when necessary.
That could mean years more of military action and could be hugely costly for Israel and its backers, the US taxpayers.
In summary, Iran’s leadership is in a very tight spot and is likely to lash out, but the future will not be a walk in the park for Israel, either, while there are big risks for America, too.
Elon Musk could be on track for a $1trn pay packet.
Tesla shareholders have approved the whopping financial package for the CEO – who’s already worth an estimated $491bn – if he hits a series of ambitious targets over the next 10 years.
But that $1trn figure (or £761,910,000,000) – which is both one thousand billion and one million million – is almost impossible to imagine for most people.
Even so, we have drilled down into the numbers and examined what you can do with a trillion US dollars – and it turns out, quite a lot.
Show me the money
Laid end to end, a trillion one-dollar bills would cover a distance of approximately 156 billion metres.
That could wrap around the equator 3,890 times, easily reach the sun from Earth (around 149.6 million km) or loop from Earth to the moon 405 times.
That many one-dollar notes could cover a massive area (roughly 10,339 km squared), meaning you could blanket nearly all of Lebanon or Jamaica in bills.
Spend it on sport
You could splash out on virtually all of the world’s major sporting leagues.
The clubs which make up the Premier League are relatively cheap ($30bn), and even when snapping up the UEFA Champions League clubs and the big five top divisions of Spain, Italy, Germany, and France, there’s still $858bn left in the kitty.
The four major US sports leagues for ice hockey, baseball, basketball, and American football (NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL) have a rough valuation of $544bn, according to Sportico.
But then add the IPL cricket league ($120bn) and F1 ($23.1bn) and Musk still has change from an estimated total spend of $829.7bn.
Elon Musk is in the money if he hits targets set by Tesla’s shareholders. File pic: AP
Take over Tesla’s rivals
He could buy up the top 15 largest publicly traded automakers (excluding Tesla) by market capitalisation.
They would include firms like Japan’s Toyota ($275bn), Chinese automaker BYD ($120bn), and luxury brands like Ferrari ($81bn) and Mercedes-Benz ($62bn), as well as BMW ($52bn), Volkswagen ($50bn) and Ford ($48bn).
But there would still be a little change left over; the total bill would be an eye-watering $992bn.
Buy up San Diego
He could buy up every single residential property in San Diego County – valued at a total of $1trn. Seattle is just slightly out of reach at $1.1trn, according to recent data from real estate firm Zillow.
But if he wanted to buy big – there is always Tennessee. The total value of homes in the US state is estimated at $957bn. Or there is Maryland, which at $1.01trn could be bought if he can find a little more cash behind the sofa.
Sadly, he would struggle to scoop up London’s entire housing stock, which in February was valued at just under £2trn ($2.53trn), according to agents Savills.
Cities like New York ($4.6trn) and Los Angeles ($3.9trn) are also not within his budget, hosting America’s most expensive residential markets.
Do something charitable?
There is always the possibility Musk could follow in the footsteps of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who intends to give away 99% of his vast fortune over the next 20 years.
He could give every single man, woman, and child in the US a share of his cash pile. They would receive approximately $2,917.32 (£2,223.29), based on a population estimate of 342.7 million.
Although it would be roughly $14,348.79 (£10,935.20) for every person (roughly 69.6 million) in the UK.
If he wanted to give the entire globe an early Christmas present, then based on the rough world population estimate of 8.2 billion, everyone would receive $121.80 (£92.87).
Pay off the credit card
With $1trn, he could instantly rewrite history and erase debt interest payments and the government debt from dozens of the world’s sovereign nations.
Or Musk could wipe out the debts of Singapore ($1trn) or South Korea ($0.99trn) in one go, according to figures from the International Monetary Fund’s latest World Economic Outlook (Oct 2025).
But when it comes to the biggest debt-laden countries, $1trn would not even touch the sides.
The US has $38.3trn of government debt (just over one third of the total global debt pile) while the UK has a modest $4.1trn.
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