Tesla is offering CEO Elon Musk an unprecedented pay package worth up to $1 trillion if he helps the electric vehicle maker reach specific milestones over the next decade.
In a securities filing submitted Friday, the company’s board plans to give Musk more than 423 million additional shares in 12 batches. To obtain the first award, the chief executive would need to double Tesla’s current market value of $1.1 trillion. Musk’s compensation plan is contingent on Tesla reaching $8.5 trillion in market value by the end of the next decade.
If he receives the awards in full, Musk could become the world’s first trillionaire. He is already the world’s richest man, with an estimated net worth of $430 billion, according to Forbes.
Tesla Chairwoman Robyn Denholm said the plan seeks to keep Musk “motivated and focused on delivering for the company.”
“If he performs, if he hits the super ambitious milestones that are in the plan, then he gets equity — it’s 1% for each half a trillion dollars of market cap, plus operational milestones he has to hit in order to do that,” Denholm said on CNBC’s morning news program Squawk Box.
Last month, Tesla decided to give Musk roughly $30 billion in restricted stock after he threatened to leave the company. The company plans to keep its co-founder as its chief executive until 2030.
Musk’s threat to quit came after he departed the White House, leaving a rift with President Donald Trump over the GOP’s major tax and spending bill, which Congress ultimately passed. Despite their public feud, Trump hopes Musk returns to the Republican Party.
Musk was absent among the Big Tech leaders who attended a dinner with Trump at the White House on Thursday. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim Cook, Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Satya Nadella, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Musk’s rival, were invited.
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The new compensation plan came after a Delaware judge determined Musk’s 2018 performance-based pay plan, worth about $56 billion, was excessive last year. The case is being appealed.
In Friday’s filing, Tesla said it would hold a shareholder vote on the proposed pay package at its annual meeting on Nov. 6. Shareholders will also vote on whether the company should invest in Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI.
