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Investors in the electric car maker assembled this Thursday to decide on a massive remuneration plan for the company's leader worth approximately close to $1 trillion. Should it pass, this plan would signal investor confidence that the tech magnate can steer the automaker into an period dominated by machine learning and robotics. Should it fail, Tesla could confront the departure of a pioneering CEO who once made the company name interchangeable with EVs.

Record-Breaking Milestones and Company Valuation

Upon reaching the lofty targets outlined in the compensation plan introduced at Tesla's corporate assembly, he could be crowned the world's first trillionaire. To reach this goal, he must lead Tesla to a monumental $8.5 trillion in market value, which is 800% of its existing market cap. Furthermore, he will be tasked to launch countless autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots, while sustaining the corporate profits in the hundreds of billions of dollars in the upcoming decade.

Compensation Structure

The key aims of the remuneration structure, divided into a dozen phases, chart a path for Tesla to achieve its enormous market capitalization. If successful, Musk would be eligible to cash in an additional 12% of the company's stock. To qualify, he must remain vested with the firm for at least 7.5 years. Furthermore, he is required to contribute to forming a long-term succession plan for the enterprise he has headed for in excess of 20 years. The equity incentives provided by the new compensation plan, combined with shares guaranteed in his 2018 package, would result in Musk with 25 percent equity of Tesla's shares. As of early November, Tesla equity was priced near its 52-week high, at approximately $450 each share.

Ambitious Targets

Over the course of a ten years, Musk will be tasked to deliver 20 million EVs to buyers, sell 10 million active full self-driving subscriptions, create and distribute 1 million advanced androids, and launch 1 million self-driving cabs in commercial service.

Musk will furthermore be tasked to elevate the company to $400 billion in real profits for four straight quarters. Tesla's tangible revenue for the third quarter of 2025 were $4.2 billion, a 9% decrease from the previous year.

By November, Musk's net worth was pegged at $460 billion, the highest in the world, as reported by financial data.

Reviving a Invalidated Deal

Shareholders are furthermore reviewing a plan that would remunerate Musk after his previous pay package was invalidated by a legal authority in Delaware. The compensation package, estimated to be $56 billion, was disputed by a individual investor who prevailed in court. The Delaware judicial system dismissed Musk's remuneration deal twice. Should investors pass the proposal in the Thursday ballot, Musk is likely to be paid the massive amount regardless of if Tesla and Musk win an appeal of the case.

After Musk's previous compensation plan was initially invalidated, he moved Tesla's corporate home to Texas from Delaware. He repeated the action with SpaceX and other business entities. In the previous year, per Texas statutes, shareholders for a second time approved the pay package.

But Delaware's known as "court of equity" once again denied one of the largest CEO payouts in recent times. In the wake of that unfavorable ruling, Musk took to social media to show frustration with the state and its "activist chief judge", possibly igniting a wave of business departures that Delaware officials have sought to curb with legislation.

In reviewing whether Musk had excessive control in being awarded that previous compensation plan, a prominent academic expert commented that the judge acknowledged that other "celebrity leaders" like Facebook's founder and the e-commerce pioneer were not granted this kind of incentive-based contracts.