Elon Musk just scored a pay package that could make him the world’s first trillionaire. Now comes the hard part — achieving 12 ambitious milestones.
With over 75% of the votes, Tesla shareholders on Thursday approved a compensation plan worth up to $1 trillion, capping a yearslong saga over Musk’s pay.
A vote on whether to authorize a Tesla investment into xAI, Musk’s AI startup, was less conclusive. Tesla said that while a majority of participating shareholders voted to approve an investment into xAI, there was also a “significant number of abstentions.” Tesla said the board will examine the “next steps.”
Tesla investors voted on multiple proposals. Chief among them was Musk’s pay package, which is contingent on achieving some lofty goals. To earn the full $1 trillion value, Musk must boost Tesla’s market cap to $8.5 trillion by 2035, sell 12 million vehicles a year, and deploy one million robotaxis and one million humanoid robots.
The pay package proposal proved divisive.
Weeks ahead of the vote, proxy advisory firms ISS and Glass Lewis have both urged shareholders to reject the proposal.
Musk called the proxy firms “corporate terrorists” during Tesla’s recent earnings call, and board chair Robyn Denholm warned shareholders in an October letter that Musk could walk away from the company if they don’t approve his compensation.
Tesla’s shares have recovered from a sharp downturn earlier in the year, but its sales face an uncertain future after the end of the EV tax credit in the US and increased competition from other automakers.
