Elon Musk, the fanciful boss of Tesla, is now free to demand a first immediate pay of nearly 775 million dollars (700 million euros), the fruit of a tailor-made compensation program indexed to the manufacturer's financial performance electric vehicles.
In a document sent Thursday, May 28, to the authority of the American financial markets, the SEC, the Californian group indicates that Mr. Musk, his emblematic boss and co-founder, can now get his hands on the first tranche of a package of stock options as part of a compensation program announced in 2018.
Tesla shareholders at the time granted the manager, over a ten-year period, 20.3 million Tesla shares, equivalent to $ 56 billion. However, it can only receive them in increments of 1%, or 1.69 million shares, each time Tesla crosses a threshold on the stock market and reaches a certain level of turnover and profit.
Capital gain if he sells his shares
Twelve market capitalization thresholds to be crossed have been determined, the highest of which is $ 650 billion to be reached by 2028 "As of the date of this document, one of the important steps relating to income (annual) $ 20 billion and a market capitalization of $ 100 billion (over a given period) has been reached and authenticated by the board of directors ", wrote Tesla on Thursday.
Elon Musk can therefore request to benefit from approximately 1.69 million Tesla shares which he will buy at a price of $ 350.02 per unit. If he then sells them, he will pocket a gain of $ 774.84 million at Tesla's closing price on Thursday – $ 805.81 – on Wall Street. The special compensation of Mr. Musk, who transformed Tesla into a world leader in the electric car, is challenged in court by a shareholder accusing the board of directors of having failed in his obligations.
No salary
Apart from these stock options based on Tesla's financial performance, Mr. Musk does not receive a salary but he already owns 18.5% of Tesla's capital, a stake valued at more than $ 24 billion, according to FactSet.
He has illustrated himself in recent weeks by a showdown with the California authorities to get a resumption of production at the Tesla factory in Fremont, near San Francisco. The site had been closed, like other auto factories in the country, to limit the spread of Covid-19.
On Wednesday, SpaceX, the space company created by Mr. Musk, had to postpone to Saturday, due to bad weather, its first manned flight in the International Space Station.
