Tesla Shareholders Determine Elon Musk Ought to Be the World’s First Trillionaire

On Thursday, Tesla shareholders accredited CEO Elon Musk’s pay package deal price as a lot as $878 billion, an end result that was extensively anticipated. Musk acquired 75% approval within the vote. The compensation plan will hand over that wealth in 12 tranches of inventory, supplied varied milestones are hit over the following decade.

The vote occurred at Tesla’s annual shareholder’s meeting in Austin, Texas, and the primary milestone that may unlock one in every of Musk’s 12 funds can be Tesla reaching a market cap of $2 trillion. The corporate’s market cap at the moment sits at $1.4 trillion.

Different metrics embody delivering 20 million Tesla autos, in addition to deploying 1 million robotaxis and 1 million humanoid robots. Musk at the moment holds about 13% of Tesla shares and, if all the milestones are hit, he would enhance his stake to about 25%, in line with CNBC.

A deserving Musk will get his package deal!

— Jim Cramer (@jimcramer) November 6, 2025

There’s a broad consensus that Musk’s affiliation with far-right politics in 2024 and 2025 has harmed Tesla’s model among the many firm’s extra liberal buyer base, however shareholders are nonetheless satisfied that the electrical carmaker can be a lot worse off if he wasn’t round.

Musk had threatened to show his consideration elsewhere if he didn’t get his payday, however he’s already distracted by ostensibly working many different corporations, together with SpaceX, The Boring Firm, xAI, and X. Formally, X doesn’t have a CEO proper now, however Musk is basically seen because the one in cost and there doesn’t look like any actual urgency to discover a new head to switch Linda Yaccarino, who left in the summer.

Musk hitched his wagon to President Donald Trump, spending practically $300 million to get him elected in 2024. Musk was the pinnacle of DOGE and took a chainsaw to the federal authorities, whereas additionally throwing up Nazi-style salutes. In consequence, many potential Tesla clients had been turned off and began inserting bumper stickers on their vehicles like “I purchased this earlier than Elon went loopy.” Tesla has seen steep declines in gross sales throughout most of Europe, with gross sales in Norway down 50%, gross sales within the Netherlands down 48%, and gross sales in Spain down 30%, in line with Bloomberg.

Musk, the wealthiest man on this planet, insisted within the lead as much as the vote that he deserved the pay package deal and it wasn’t really concerning the cash. The billionaire claimed that he wanted the vote from shareholders to have affect over Tesla’s “robotic military,” attempting to counsel that his developments with the Optimus robotic could possibly be harmful in the event that they fall into the fallacious fingers. Musk has made comparable claims about AI doubtlessly destroying humanity if not guided appropriately towards what he calls the “woke thoughts virus.”

Musk has tried to pivot Tesla in recent times from an electrical automotive firm into one thing a lot tougher to outline. The billionaire CEO desires individuals to consider Tesla as a expertise firm, investing in AI and robotics, however Musk’s carnival barker perspective typically means he guarantees large issues and delivers one thing way more humble.

For instance, Musk promised to construct a mass transit system referred to as the Loop in 2018 which initially included autonomous 16-passenger autos zipping round underground at speeds of 155 miles per hour. The concept video, which was initially posted to Vimeo earlier than being deleted years later, was fairly spectacular.

However when it got here time to truly construct the factor Musk had promised, he created a brief tunnel beneath Las Vegas. No particular new car, no excessive pace, no autonomy. It was simply common outdated Teslas slowly pushed by people in a brief tunnel.

Musk likes to create hype when his corporations are struggling. After which, when the sugar rush wears off, he strikes on to the following factor. What’s the following over-hyped promise? Robots, for positive. However he’s additionally teasing the thought of a flying automotive, which he instructed podcaster Joe Rogan final week could possibly be demonstrated before the end of this year.

Shareholders voted to provide Musk a $56 billion pay package deal in 2018 that was additionally depending on hitting 12 totally different milestones, together with elevated market capitalization of $50 billion as much as $650 billion. However a choose in Delaware has shot down that compensation plan as a result of it had deceptive and incomplete info. That package deal remains to be being fought over within the courts. Musk mentioned the choose was a “radical far left activist cosplaying as a choose,” an accusation he typically makes of anybody to the left of Augusto Pinochet.

Elon Musk is price $492 billion, in line with the most recent estimates by Forbes. Tesla’s inventory closed down 3% to $445 per share on Thursday, however ticked up 3% in after hours buying and selling after the announcement.