🔗 Share this article

Investors in the electric car maker gathered this Thursday to determine on a substantial remuneration plan for CEO Elon Musk estimated at close to $1 trillion. Upon approval, this package would demonstrate investor confidence that the billionaire can steer the car company into an era shaped by machine learning and advanced machinery. If denied, Tesla could potentially face the departure of a pioneering CEO who historically built the company name equivalent with EVs.

Historic Goals and Company Valuation

If the CEO meets the ambitious milestones specified in the remuneration deal revealed at Tesla's corporate assembly, he could emerge as the first-ever person with a trillion-dollar net worth. For this to happen, he must guide Tesla to a astronomical $8.5 trillion in company worth, which is eight times its existing market cap. Moreover, he will be tasked to roll out millions self-driving cars and bipedal machines, while maintaining the company's bottom line in the hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade.

Payment Breakdown

The main goals of the remuneration structure, organized into a dozen phases, delineate a trajectory for Tesla to achieve its colossal valuation. If successful, Musk would be able to cash in an extra 12% of the company's stock. To qualify, he must remain vested with the company for a minimum of 7.5 years. Additionally, he must help develop a long-term succession plan for the business he has managed for in excess of 20 years. The equity incentives awarded by the latest pay package, combined with shares guaranteed in his 2018 package, would grant Musk with 25 percent equity of Tesla's equity. By the start of November, Tesla stock was trading close to its yearly maximum, at roughly $450 each share.

Lofty Goals

Over the course of a ten-year period, Musk will be required to manufacture 20 million zero-emission cars to consumers, market 10 million live FSD memberships, produce and launch 1 million humanoid robots, and deploy 1 million robotaxis in commercial service.

Musk will also be required to increase the company to $400 billion in real profits for four consecutive quarters. Tesla's real profits for the July-September 2025 were $4.2 billion, 9 percent lower from the previous year.

In November, Musk's net worth was valued at $460 billion, the top in the globe, according to market tracking.

Restoring a Invalidated Package

Investors are furthermore evaluating a proposal that would compensate Musk after his earlier remuneration deal was voided by a judicial body in Delaware. The pay plan, estimated to be $56 billion, was contested by a individual investor who succeeded legally. The state court dismissed Musk's pay package on multiple instances. If shareholders approve the proposal in Thursday's vote, Musk is set to be granted the substantial payout regardless of if Tesla and Musk overturn the ruling of the legal matter.

After Musk's previous compensation plan was first rescinded, he transferred Tesla's legal headquarters out of Delaware and into Texas. He followed suit with his aerospace company and other companies' headquarters. In last year, under Texas law, shareholders once again voted to approve the remuneration deal.

But Delaware's so-called "judicial body" again denied one of the biggest CEO payouts in contemporary business. Following that negative decision, Musk used online platforms to show frustration with the state and its "prominent judicial figure", arguably igniting a number of company relocations that Delaware legislators have attempted to staunch with new laws.

In evaluating whether Musk had undue influence in being granted that 2018 pay package, a prominent law professor remarked that the judicial authority acknowledged that other "high-profile executives" like the Meta chief and the Amazon founder were not granted this type of incentive-based contracts.