Why Elon Musk demands $1 trillion bonus – but not because of the money

October 24, 2025

Influence over wealth

What on earth is a person supposed to do with 900 billion euros, you might ask. Especially when you know that Musk is already good for about 400 billion euros. According to him, therefore, the 900 billion euro bonus – the so-called CEO Performance Award – is not about personal enrichment, but influence.

Exclude

He says he fears “activist shareholders” will eventually shut him out while he is busy working on Tesla’s most ambitious projects to date. Those projects – from self-driving cars to an army of robots – he says require long-term control from Musk. “I want enough influence to set the course, but not so much power that I can’t be fired if I go crazy,” he said this week during the quarterly earnings presentation.

His reasoning: if Tesla is going to build an army of millions of robots, he does not want people without technical knowledge or vision to take the helm. So the bonus should secure his influence within Tesla, not just fill his bank account. Although this deal would make him the world’s first trillionaire.

The requirements

Musk will not get the bonus – áf it is approved – just like that. He has to work hard for it and meet almost impossibly high goals. Tesla’s stock market value must grow from about $1.1 trillion to $8.5 trillion, with annual profits of $400 billion. That seems almost impossible, but Musk thinks it is achievable. In addition, Tesla must sell 20 million cars, run one million robot cabs and produce one million Optimus robots. So it is not a gift – he will have to do everything for it. Shareholders get to decide whether Musk is entitled to the reward. Whether they grant him that power will be seen on Nov. 6, when the proposal is voted on.