Tesla board proposes up to $1 trillion in compensation for Musk

Tesla's Board of Directors has asked its investors for the green light on a new package for the CEO Elon Musk's compensation valued at up to $1 trillion if the electric car giant achieves a series of targets over the next 10 years. The largest payment represents a 12 per cent stake in the company if Tesla reaches $8.5 trillion in capitalisation. "Retaining and incentivising Elon is critical to Tesla becoming the most valuable company in history," said Tesla president Robin Denholm.

The electric vehicle company, which is also betting heavily on areas such as robotics and artificial intelligence, said in a document today that the compensation would include a dozen share packages that will be awarded to Musk if he achieves certain 10-year, lofty goals. To reach the amount envisaged in the compensation plan, Tesla would have to reach a market capitalisation of $2 trillion and produce and deliver 20 million vehicles.

In early August, the US carmaker's board of directors had approved the award to its CEO of 96 million shares at a price of $23.34, the same strike price at the time of the adoption of Tesla's head's remuneration plan in 2018, which was later cancelled in December 2024 by a Delaware court for irregularities in the approval process. A move to hold Musk back in every way possible.