The $1 Trillion Vote Of Confidence: Tesla Shareholders Supercharge Elon Musk’s Pay Package

In a move that could redefine executive compensation globally, Tesla shareholders overwhelmingly approved a massive pay package for CEO Elon Musk on Thursday, a deal that could potentially award him up

to $1 trillion in stock options over the next decade. The vote, approved with over 75% support, signals a strong belief from investors that Musk is the irreplaceable figure needed to transition Tesla from an electric vehicle leader into an artificial intelligence and robotics powerhouse.

The unprecedented compensation is not a guaranteed payout but is entirely conditional on Musk achieving a series of highly ambitious operational and financial milestones. The most critical benchmark requires Musk to guide Tesla to a staggering $8.5 trillion market capitalisation, a valuation that is roughly six times its current worth and would make it one of the most valuable companies in history.

The compensation plan is divided into 12 tranches, with each vesting based on meeting compounding financial and product goals. Beyond the enormous valuation targets, Musk must also deliver on colossal operational objectives within the next decade. These include the cumulative delivery of 20 million Tesla vehicles, the deployment of 1 million robotaxis for commercial service, and the development and sale of 1 million humanoid robots (Optimus). Furthermore, the company must sustain $400 billion in actual core profit over four consecutive quarters.

The vote came despite significant pushback from major institutional investors and influential proxy advisory firms like Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), who argued the package was excessively large and failed to mitigate the “key person risk” of relying so heavily on one executive. However, Tesla’s board and loyal retail investors successfully argued that the compensation was necessary to incentivise Musk—who had threatened to pursue other interests if the deal failed—to focus his singular vision and energy on Tesla’s future ventures in AI and autonomous technology.

The approval of this package, which would significantly increase Musk’s stake in the company to over 25%, is the largest corporate payout in history. It also comes alongside a separate shareholder vote approving an alternative plan to compensate Musk for his controversial $56 billion 2018 pay package, which was previously invalidated by a Delaware court, further cementing the shareholders’ commitment to retaining the “Superstar CEO”.