A compensation package approved for Elon Musk this week is the largest on record and could make Musk the world’s first trillionaire! But he can’t spend it yet — he’ll first have to hit a series of performance targets that stretch across the next decade. The 54-year-old Musk is already the world’s richest person with a fortune of $490.1 billion, according to Forbes. The old adage that “the rich get richer” is clearly true in this case.
Stock will be awarded to Musk in a set of 12 potential payouts. He would receive his first round of stock if Tesla hits a $2 trillion valuation and delivers 20 million vehicles. He gets another bump if Tesla reaches a market capitalization of $3 trillion and delivers 1 million of its “Optimus” humanoid robots. If Tesla hits all of the marks, its market value would explode to $8.5 trillion, with Musk owning about a quarter of the company’s shares.
If Tesla merely achieves the first two benchmarks, Musk will earn $26 billion – more than the total lifetime pay of the Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim Cook and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang COMBINED, according to a recent Reuters analysis.
Tesla’s board developed the massive Musk pay plan after a Delaware judge struck down a $56 billion compensation plan. The judge ruled that the previous package, which was approved in 2018, was excessive and riddled with conflicts of interest. Musk responded to the decision, which remains tied up in court, by moving Tesla’s state of incorporation to Texas from Delaware.
The newly approved compensation plan does not require Musk to limit his involvement in politics. That was a key concern for some shareholders who linked his work with President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to Tesla’s sales slippage earlier this year. They argued that politics distracted him from focus on the company. Ultimately, the majority decided that even a somewhat distracted Musk leading the company was better than no Musk, as he threatened to leave if the pay package was not approved.
Steve Gill is editor and publisher of TriStar Daily. He hopes to also get a pay package that also starts with the letter T soon, possibly in Thousands.
