🔗 Share this article

Tesla shareholders convened this Thursday to decide on a substantial compensation package for the company's leader valued at close to $1 trillion. Upon approval, this package would showcase investor confidence that the entrepreneur can steer the car company into an era defined by machine learning and automation. If denied, Tesla could potentially face the exit of a visionary leader who once made the brand equivalent with EVs.

Historic Milestones and Company Valuation

If the CEO meets the lofty objectives detailed in the remuneration deal introduced at Tesla's corporate assembly, he could be crowned the pioneering person with a trillion-dollar net worth. To accomplish this, he must guide Tesla to a astronomical $8.5 trillion in market value, which is 800% of its present worth. Additionally, he will be tasked to launch countless driverless automobiles and advanced androids, while sustaining the company's bottom line in the hundreds of billions over the next decade.

Compensation Structure

The main goals of the compensation plan, organized into a dozen phases, chart a roadmap for Tesla to achieve its enormous market capitalization. Should targets be met, Musk would be eligible to benefit from an further 12% of the corporation's shares. To be eligible, he must remain vested with the company for no less than 7.5 years. Furthermore, he is required to help develop a corporate transition roadmap for the business he has headed for over 20 years. The share grants provided by the updated remuneration deal, alongside shares guaranteed in his 2018 package, would leave Musk with a quarter stake of Tesla's stock. By the start of November, Tesla stock was trading near its 52-week high, at roughly $450 per share.

Ambitious Targets

Over the course of a ten years, Musk will be tasked to manufacture 20 million EVs to buyers, sell 10 million operational autonomous driving plans, create and distribute 1 million humanoid robots, and deploy 1 million autonomous taxis in paid operations.

Musk will additionally be tasked to increase the company to $400 billion in real profits for four straight quarters. Tesla's tangible revenue for the Q3 2025 were $4.2 billion, 9 percent lower from the previous year.

As of November, Musk's net worth was valued at $460 billion, the top in the world, as reported by market tracking.

Reviving a Revoked Package

Shareholders are furthermore considering a proposal that would compensate Musk after his 2018 compensation plan was overturned by a legal authority in Delaware. The remuneration deal, worth an estimated $56 billion, was disputed by a individual investor who won his case. The Delaware court of chancery rejected Musk's compensation plan on two occasions. Upon stockholder approval the plan in Thursday's vote, Musk is set to be paid the massive amount whether or not Tesla and Musk overturn the ruling of the legal matter.

After Musk's previous compensation plan was first rescinded, he transferred Tesla's corporate home to Texas from Delaware. He repeated the action with SpaceX and other companies' headquarters. In 2024, per Texas statutes, shareholders for a second time voted to approve the compensation plan.

But Delaware's so-called "court of equity" once again denied one of the biggest CEO compensation packages in modern history. Following that unfavorable ruling, Musk used online platforms to show frustration with the state and its "prominent judicial figure", possibly fueling a wave of business departures that Delaware officials have tried to stop with regulatory measures.

In evaluating whether Musk had undue influence in being awarded that 2018 pay package, a noted legal scholar remarked that the judge recognized that other "celebrity leaders" like Facebook's founder and the e-commerce pioneer were not given this type of performance-linked deals.