Tesla’s shareholders overwhelmingly approved a landmark compensation package for CEO Elon Musk that, if he meets a long list of ambitious targets, could be worth roughly $1 trillion and would likely catapult Musk past the trillion-dollar mark in personal wealth.
More than three-quarters of shares voted in favor of the plan at Tesla’s annual meeting in Austin, the company said, a result that drew cheers from the crowd and immediate thanks from Musk. “I super appreciate it,” he told shareholders after the tally was announced. Had shareholders voted down the package, it could have paved the way for Musk’s potential departure as Tesla’s CEO.
Musk has emphasized that the additional shares are meant to increase his control over Tesla, not to boost his personal wealth.
“It’s not like I’m going to go spend the money,” Musk said. “There needs to be enough voting control to give me a strong influence, but not so much that I can’t be fired if I go insane.”
Musk’s net worth is estimated at around $473 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, largely driven by his stakes in Tesla, as well as in his privately held ventures SpaceX and xAI.
Musk doesn’t draw a traditional salary, but under the approved plan, he could receive up to 423.7 million additional Tesla shares over the next decade through a performance-based stock grant.
The potential payout could be worth around $1 trillion if Tesla’s market value climbs to $8.5 trillion, the threshold required for Musk to unlock the full award. To receive all the shares, Tesla must also meet a series of operational and financial milestones, with the stock grants distributed in 12 equal tranches as each target is achieved.
If Musk were to unlock the entire award over the next decade, it would amount to an average of about $275 million per day, a sum that would surpass any executive compensation package in history.
Ambitious milestones ahead for Tesla’s valuation
To reach the $8.5 trillion valuation required for Musk’s full payout, Tesla’s stock would have to surge about 466 percent from its current price, a milestone that would place the company’s worth roughly 70 percent above Nvidia’s record $5 trillion market cap, the highest in the world.
Bigger aspirations for Tesla
Tesla executives, including Musk, have downplayed recent challenges, highlighting a shift from selling EVs to developing self-driving cars, robotaxis, and humanoid robots. At the shareholder meeting, Musk focused more on these futuristic products like ‘robotaxis’ than on Tesla’s cars, predicting the robots could surpass the car business in scale.
Musk claimed the robots will outsize Tesla’s car business and any other venture.
“I think it’s going to be the biggest product of all time by far,” he said. “So like bigger than cell phones, bigger than anything. I guess a way to think about it is that every human on Earth is going to want to have their own personal R2D2 or C3PO.”
He went on to suggest Tesla’s robots could replace surgeons, eradicate global poverty, and transform the global economy.
