Elon Musk and noted Dogefather famously doesn’t accept his salary from Tesla, however, the CEO is entitled to a generous compensation plan that could hit around $30 billion this year.
In 2018, shareholders approved a very generous CEO compensation plan that consists of an important amount of stock options that he can unlock if Tesla achieves certain milestones.
The milestones consist of increases in revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and new goals for Tesla’s market valuation.
Last year, Musk unlocked the first tranche of his compensation plan, which was worth about $800 million.
Now Tesla has consistently delivered profits and maintained a high market capitalization since then — resulting in Musk unlocking several more tranches of his compensation plan.
With Tesla delivering over $10 billion in revenue and EBITDA of $1.8 billion last quarter, Musk unlocked the fifth and sixth tranches.
The CEO has yet to exercise those options, but if he were to exercise them, it would receive over $30 billion worth of Tesla stocks — likely making him the best-paid executive in the world.
And that would only be for half of the CEO compensation plan.
If Tesla keeps moving in that direction and Musk unlocks the other six tranches in his compensation plan, the CEO stands to easily make over $100 billion.