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Elon Musk’s new $2.6 billion compensation plan approved by Tesla shareholders

Elon Musk’s new $2.6 billion compensation plan approved by Tesla shareholders

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The stock options-based award could be worth even more if Musk helps the company meet some big goals

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Tesla’s shareholders have voted to approve a new 10-year compensation plan for CEO Elon Musk valued at around $2.6 billion in stock options, according to multiple outlets.

Musk won’t get the full value in one lump sum, and he might not even get all of it. The compensation is dependent on the company hitting certain milestones in the coming years, including whether or not Musk can usher Tesla to an astronomical market valuation of $650 billion in the next 10 years — an amount that would be more than 10 times the company’s current value of around $59 billion.

Once Tesla reaches a market valuation of $100 billion, Musk will be awarded one-twelfth of the total stock options package. Each time Tesla’s market valuation grows $50 billion beyond that, he’ll be awarded another same-sized slice of the stock options. There are also 16 operational milestones that have to do with specific revenue and profitability targets, though up to 12 of those can be tied to the market cap goals.

If the options fully vest, Musk could wind up owning a 28 percent stake of Tesla, which could be worth nearly $200 billion. Musk, who is estimated to be worth $20 billion, currently doesn’t make a salary at Tesla. (The company makes a California-mandated minimum wage salary available to him, but he has not accepted it, according to SEC filings.)

Musk “will be compensated only if Tesla and all of its shareholders do extraordinarily well”

“Elon will receive no guaranteed compensation of any kind — no salary, no cash bonuses, and no equity that vests simply by the passage of time,” the company wrote in a statement when the compensation plan was announced in January. “Instead, Elon’s only compensation will be a 100% at-risk performance award, which ensures that he will be compensated only if Tesla and all of its shareholders do extraordinarily well.”

Musk took on a similar CEO compensation plan in 2012, when the company’s market valuation was just $3.2 billion. That plan revolved around product development milestones like completing the first Model X and Model 3, or reaching specific numbers of total cars produced. The company’s board of directors recently said in an SEC filing that it “believes that the 2012 Performance Award played a significant role in Tesla’s operational and financial success by properly aligning Mr. Musk’s incentives with the best interests of Tesla and its stockholders.”

Those are essentially the goals of the new plan: boosting that company’s value even higher while also keeping Musk around. Musk famously splits his time between Tesla, SpaceX, and more far out transportation ventures like The Boring Company and the Hyperloop. But Tesla has been having trouble ramping up production of the Model 3, which is key to the company’s success going forward. Tesla’s also recently lost some key executives.

The compensation plan doesn’t require Musk to stay on as Tesla CEO throughout the length of it, though the only other roles he’s allowed to take are executive chairman or chief product officer. Even in those roles, the CEO would have to report to him, according to the agreement.

Musk recently said he sees himself staying on as Tesla CEO “for the foreseeable future”

In a February earnings call with industry analysts, Musk was asked whether he sees a successor on the horizon.

“I expect to remain CEO for the foreseeable future. But at some point if there’s somebody really spectacular inside or outside the company who could take on that role and who would want to have that title and that role, that would be fine with me, and I would focus on product development, which is design and engineering, which is what I like doing best,” he said. “So, there are no plans to make a change at this time.”