The future’s so bright for Elon Musk, even industrial-grade shades won’t block the glare from his $1 trillion (€862 billion) pay deal. That is, of course, if he manages to hit some truly mind-boggling goals for Tesla, the electric-vehicle company he founded and transformed into a tech juggernaut.
To unlock the full value of his compensation package, Musk must hit milestones that sound more like science fiction than corporate strategy. These include deploying one million robotaxis — autonomous vehicles that generate revenue without human drivers — and producing a million Optimus humanoid robots, powered by artificial intelligence (AI).
Musk will only become the world’s first trillionaire, albeit in stock options, if Tesla reaches a market capitalization of $8.5 trillion, six times the current $1.43 trillion. Even if he misses the mark, Musk won’t be hurting for cash, but the real question is: Can he deliver?
Tesla fans put faith in Musk
Alexandra Merz, the Tesla shareholder known as TeslaBoomerMama and who voted for the deal, strongly believes Elon Musk is “the best executor there is on this planet.”
“I’m very confident that he will hit the milestones. He’s shown us before what is possible,” she told Bloomberg Television recently.
More than three-quarters of Tesla shareholders approved Musk’s pay deal last Thursday after a seven-year legal battle and despite opposition from some institutional investors, including CalPERS, the largest public pension fund in the United States.
CalPERS cited concerns about Musk’s expanding control of Tesla. Under the stock deal, he could secure up to 25% shareholder voting rights, from 13% today. Critics argue that if Musk owned a quarter of Tesla, he could wield outsized control, stifle dissent and steer the firm’s direction with minimal oversight.
Musk could hold too much power
Nell Minow, vice chair of ValueEdge Advisors, is one of the most vocal critics of Musk’s latest pay deal, arguing that it gives him too much control while diluting other shareholders.
“[It’s] more than an outrage, it is a fraud,” Minow told DW, noting how Musk moved Tesla from the business-friendly state of Delaware to Texas at huge expense after his previous $56 billion pay package was twice overturned by Delaware courts.
“Then, also at huge expense, he paid lobbyists, lawyers, and legislators to pass a new law severely limiting the ability of shareholders to challenge the pay plan,” which she said gives the board authority to award Musk’s compensation “at their discretion, even if those goals are not met.”
Worrying sign of extreme inequality
Others like Joanna Bryson, a professor in ethics and technology at Berlin’s Hertie School of Governance, think Musk’s pay deal is emblematic of a wider problem in US governance — how Big Tech’s growth and power are creating extreme inequality, which she says is “unsustainable.”
“There’s a big security problem when individuals have more power than countries,” she told DW.
Bryson gave the examples of World War I and the pre-1929 US stock market bubble as times when the world was as unequal as it is now.
“Anything that’s giving disproportionate large amounts of money to any one person is creating entropy [moving from order to chaos].”
An even bigger potential issue is key man risk. In Musk’s case, this would be the negative impact on Tesla if he were unable to perform his role due to departure, illness, distraction or death.
Tesla’s success is heavily tied to Musk’s leadership, vision and execution. The firm could be left vulnerable if he were to be preoccupied by his other ventures, like SpaceX or xAI.
Musk accused of too many distractions
Musk was already criticized for taking his eye off the ball earlier this year when he joined the Trump administration as the head of DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency — not the meme coin).
His brief stint at DOGE triggered a backlash that spilled into Tesla’s operations, with protests outside factories, calls for boycotts and even sabotage incidents that disrupted production and dented investor confidence.
Musk stepped down from DOGE after just 130 days, and in July launched his new political movement, the America Party, aiming to challenge the two-party system and reshape national discourse.
For some investors, the risk of distraction is no longer hypothetical — it’s unfolding in real time.
“If Musk is not sufficiently motivated by his current holdings, this [new pay deal] will not be enough to persuade him to ignore his many side hustles and stop the outrageous political comments that a recent Yale University study has shown have cost the company and the shareholders one million sales,” Minow told DW.
The board said the primary objective of the bumper share deal is to keep Musk’s attention on Tesla. He won’t be able to sell newly awarded stock for up to a decade after receiving it.
Doubts over robotics’ near-term potential
Even if he remains laser-focused, critics argue the goals themselves may be out of reach, especially the plan to produce a million Optimus humanoid robots per year. While Tesla has showcased Optimus prototypes performing basic tasks, many experts believe the technology is still in its infancy.
Australian roboticist Rodney Brooks wrote in an essay published in September that Optimus and other humanoid robots are doomed to failure due to a lack of agility.
“The general plan is that humanoid robots will be … able to step in and do the manual things that humans do at lower prices and just as well. In my opinion, believing that this will happen any time within decades is pure fantasy thinking,” Brooks wrote.
Other skeptics warn that setting such futuristic milestones may be a way to justify Musk’s eye-watering compensation while keeping the hype machine running. If Optimus fails to materialize at scale, it could undermine the credibility of the entire pay package.
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/whats-stopping-elon-musk-from-becoming-a-trillionaire/a-74684756
