Shareholders approve Elon Musk’s huge performance-based pay package

Enlarge / Elon Musk in Idaho in 2015. (credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Tesla shareholders have approved a massive new pay package for Tesla CEO Elon Musk, helping to ensure that he will continue running the company for another decade.

The package is performance based. If Tesla's stock value reaches $100 billion, Musk will receive an award equal to one percent of the company's shares, worth $1 billion. Musk gets another one percent for each $50 billion increase in the share price. If the stock rises to $650 billion-and Tesla meets other profit and revenue targets-Musk will get a series of stock awards totaling $45 billion.

Tesla's stock is currently worth around $53 billion, so even hitting the first target of $100 billion within the next 10 years won't be easy. If he doesn't reach this target, he'll get no compensation for serving as Tesla's CEO over the next decade.

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