Musk’s Payday Is a Lot Like Tesla Stock: Full of Hot Air

If you spent most of your time at your day job working on several side gigs and posting inflammatory content on social media, then you might expect to get replaced by a robot or at least brace for a serious talk with your manager about a pay cut. But if you’re Elon Musk, you end up getting promised annual compensation worth $158 billion to keep you motivated.

That’s how much Tesla Inc. valued the compensation for its highly distracted and distracting, but evidently irreplaceable, chief executive officer in 2025, the company disclosed late Thursday. It’s part of a package that could eventually total $1 trillion, which shareholders approved last year “as a way to motivate Tesla’s chief executive to spend more time at the electric-vehicle maker,” as The Wall Street Journal put it.