Musk could become world’s 1st trillionaire as Tesla shareholders approve
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The world’s richest man was just handed a chance to become history’s first trillionaire.
Elon Musk won a shareholder vote on Thursday that would give the Tesla CEO stock worth $1 trillion if he hits certain performance targets over the next decade.
The vote followed weeks of debate over his management record at the electric car maker and whether anyone deserved such unprecedented pay, drawing heated commentary from small investors to giant pension funds and even the pope.
In the end, more than 75 per cent of voting shareholders gathered at the company’s Austin, Texas, headquarters approved the plan.
“Fantastic group of shareholders,” Musk said after the final vote was tallied, adding “Hang on to your Tesla stock.”
The vote is a resounding victory for Musk showing investors still have faith in him as Tesla struggles with plunging sales, market share and profits in no small part due to Musk himself.
Car buyers have fled the company this year after he ventured into politics both in the U.S. and Europe, and trafficked in conspiracy theories.
The vote came just three days after a report from Europe showing Tesla car sales plunged again last month, including a 50 per cent collapse in Germany.
Still, many Tesla investors consider Musk to be a sort of miracle man capable of stunning business feats, such as when he pulled Tesla from the brink of bankruptcy a half-dozen years ago to turn it into one of the world’s most valuable companies.
Musk must meet targets
The vote clears a path for Musk to become a trillionaire by granting him new shares, but it won’t be easy.
The board of directors that designed the pay package has required him to hit several ambitious financial and operational targets, including increasing the value of the company on the stock market nearly six times its current level.
Musk also has to deliver 20 million Tesla electric vehicles to the market over 10 years amid stiff competition — that’s more than double the number since the founding of the company.
Elon Musk is already the world’s richest person, but he could become the world’s first trillionaire if his company Tesla hits a series of targets set out in a pay scheme disclosed by the electric car company.
He also has to deploy more than 1 million of his human-like robots that he has promised will transform work and home — he calls it a “robot army” — from zero today.
Musk could add billions to his wealth in a few years by partly delivering these goals, according to various intermediate steps that will hand him newly created stock in the company as he nears the ultimate targets.
That could help him eventually top John D. Rockefeller, who is widely considered America’s all-time richest…
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