Reuters: With minimal effort, Musk will receive more from Tesla than the world's eight top CEOs combined

American entrepreneur and investor Elon Musk can get a significant part of the unprecedented benefits package from Tesla, failing to achieve all the "sky-high" goals set by the Board of Directors. About this writes Reuters.

In September, Tesla offered Musk $878 billion in company shares over ten years. Formally, in order to receive this money, the businessman has to achieve very ambitious goals: to create robots, self-driving taxis, and significantly increase Tesla's profits and market value.

But a Reuters analysis showed that Musk could earn more than $50 billion by accomplishing just a few relatively simple goals.

Even achieving just two of the simplest goals and moderate stock growth could bring Musk $26 billion, which is more than the lifetime salary of the eight highest-paid CEOs, including Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison and Tim Cook.

According to the agency, if Musk sells 1.2 million cars a year over the next decade and Tesla shares grow moderately, he will earn about $8.2 billion.

Musk's three goals for the new products – robots and autopilot – are very vaguely formulated. For example, to achieve one of the goals, it is enough for Tesla to have 10 million subscriptions to the Full Self-Driving system, which currently does not work without driver participation.

Other goals regarding robotaxis and robots can also be interpreted broadly, allowing Musk to receive large payouts without creating truly revolutionary products.

The most challenging tasks remain financial indicators – a profit of $50 billion to $400 billion. So far, Tesla has earned $16.6 billion in 2024.

But each goal in the package – be it sales, subscriptions, or profits – gives Musk 1% of the shares, so the easier achievements will bring just as big a payout as the harder ones.

The compensation package is only valid if Musk remains CEO for at least seven and a half years. At the same time, he will immediately receive the right to vote on the accrued shares.

Thus, Musk can make significant sums even without fully realizing these ambitious technologies, but to maximize his payout, he will have to achieve truly revolutionary business and profit results.

• on September 15, it became known that Musk invested $1 billion in Tesla shares in response to the largest payout package in history.
• on October 3, it was reported that Tesla shareholders, including SOC Investment Group and several government officials, had been informed that Tesla was going to be taken over by the company, urged investors to vote against the unprecedented payout package Elon Musk for $1 trillion.