Musk will receive tens of billions of dollars from Tesla even for fulfilling a few simple goals
In September, Tesla unveiled a new payout plan for Elon Musk: he could receive up to $878 billion in stock over 10 years if he meets all of his goals. At the same time, according to Reuters, he only needs to complete a few simpler tasks to earn tens of billions.
To receive the reward, Musk must "completely transform Tesla and society as we know it" in the areas of robotics, autonomous driving, and also raise the company's share price and profits. If he fails to meet any of the goals, the payments will not be appropriate. But, as Reuters notes, to receive more than $ 50 billion, Musk needs to fulfill only a few conditions from the board of directors, which do not even require revolutionary changes in Tesla's products or business.
Although $50 billion is far less than the potential $878 billion, such a bonus would still be the largest in history and exceed the payouts of any CEO, even at top companies. Moreover, for fulfilling just two of the simplest conditions, Musk would receive $26 billion — more than the combined lifetime compensation of many CEOs of large companies, including Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, and Jensen Huang.
According to four auto industry experts, one of the easiest goals Musk can achieve is selling electric cars. The CEO must ensure that the company sells 1.2 million cars a year for a decade, although the company sold 1.7 million electric cars last year. For this, the CEO will receive $8.2 billion if Tesla’s value increases from $1.4 trillion to $2 trillion by 2035.
Tesla also has a goal of getting 10 million subscribers to its Full Self-Driving software. It's not about creating a full autopilot, either. Experts believe that this goal would be easier to achieve if the company lowered the subscription fee, which is currently $8,000 a month or $99 a month. However, surveys show that FSD is more likely to deter potential buyers than attract them.
Another goal is to have one million robo-taxis in commercial operation, including vehicles with "no human driver in the vehicle." There is also a goal of putting one million robots into service. This is likely to be Optimus, whose production was recently suspended, but industry experts believe that this goal can be interpreted in different ways.
Achieving just two goals, one of which even dwarfs Tesla's previous achievements, as well as raising the company's market value to $2.5 trillion, will bring Elon Musk $26.4 billion. If he manages to raise the value of the electric car manufacturer's shares to $3 trillion, his reward will increase to $54.6 billion. To do this, the richest man in the world, whose fortune was recently estimated at $500 billion, does not even need to produce Tesla's driverless cars, which Musk has been promising for a long time.