A new incentive package proposed by Tesla could see Elon Musk’s personal fortune skyrocket past the $2 trillion mark, establishing a new stratosphere of wealth. The 10-year plan is designed to reward the CEO on a historic scale if he can deliver historic levels of growth for the electric car and technology company.
The plan is tied to increasing Tesla’s market value from its current position of just over $1 trillion to an immense $8.5 trillion. Achieving this and other performance milestones would trigger the vesting of new shares that would significantly increase Musk’s ownership stake from nearly 16% to well beyond 25%.
This potential increase in wealth is difficult to comprehend. Musk’s current fortune, estimated by Forbes at $430.9 billion, already makes him the richest person on the planet by a wide margin. A jump to over $2 trillion would make his wealth greater than the current fortunes of the next ten richest people in the world combined.
The proposal effectively links the creation of the world’s most valuable company with the creation of the world’s most valuable personal fortune. For shareholders, the prospect of such a massive valuation increase is tantalizing, but it comes with the unprecedented condition of making its chief executive a figure of almost unimaginable financial power.