Musk to get $800m share reward after hitting his targets at Tesla

ELON MUSK has earned nearly $800m (£649m) in shares as part of an unprecedented performance-related pay package for the Tesla founder.

The electric carmaker’s chief executive, who recently announced that he was ridding himself of many of his worldly possessions, agreed to forego an annual salary in 2018 in exchange for the share award scheme. He is now eligible for the first tranche of discounted Tesla shares after the company hit a series of performance milestones, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

“In particular, 2019 was a recordsetting year for Tesla’s annual revenues, year-end cash balance, vehicle production and deliveries, and energy storage deployment,” Tesla’s board said in the filing.

Tesla shareholders will be asked to endorse the compensation at an annual meeting of investors in early July.

“One of the 12 tranches under this award has vested and become exercisable,” the board said.

The first tranche, of about 1.7m stock options, was dependent on Tesla revenue exceeding $20bn in total over the last four quarters and maintaining a valuation of more than $100bn.

Tesla’s shares were trading at around $301 each in March 2018, when Mr Musk agreed to the deal, which gives him the right to buy the shares for about $350 apiece.

Since then Tesla has enjoyed a meteoric rise in fortunes, more than doubling in value to $149bn with shares now trading at around $800 each. The first tranche of shares has a current market value of around $769m.

The board said that at Mr Musk’s request the company “eliminated” his base salary meaning that “100pc” of his future compensation was “at-risk” in the form of unvested stock options.

Should Mr Musk collect all 12 tranches in the pay deal, he would be in line to pick up around 20.3m new Tesla shares at the reduced price, which could catapult him into a new echelon of wealth.

Mr Musk’s enormous reward comes as his Spacex programme looks to today become the first private company to send astronauts into space.

Its attempt to launch a capsule – the Crew Dragon ship – to the International Space Station earlier this week from Cape Canaveral in Florida had been aborted due to bad weather.