Tesla founder Elon Musk is on track to become the first trillionaire in history after his company’s shareholders approved a groundbreaking $1 trillion pay package for the CEO—who is already the richest person on the planet.
The historic rewards program was first proposed by the board of Musk’s Texas-based company in September, when Tesla’s investors were asked to approve a 10-year plan for the 54 year old, which will see him given significant payouts should the company achieve several very ambitious milestones.
That pay package was officially approved at a shareholder meeting on Nov. 6, according to the Associated Press.
Some of the measurements mentioned in the pay package include an increase of Tesla’s market value to $8.5 trillion—nearly eight times its current worth of $1.09 trillion—and the success of its robotaxi, robotics, and AI initiatives.
The proposed pay package was laid out in the company’s September proxy filing, which stated that Musk’s stake in Tesla would increase to 25% if he is able to achieve each of the benchmarks laid out, according to Bloomberg.
Tesla’s board noted that the incentive is intended to keep its CEO focused wholeheartedly on the work that the company is doing—and comes in the wake of his brief stint as the head of President Donald Trump‘s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a role that was viewed as taking time away from his position at the EV giant.
“Simply put, retaining and incentivizing Elon is fundamental to Tesla achieving these goals and becoming the most valuable company in history,” Tesla board chair Robyn Denholm and director Kathleen Wilson-Thompson wrote in a letter to its shareholders.
Tesla’s investors previously approved a $56 billion compensation package for Musk back in 2018—however, that incentive plan was shut down by a Delaware court in January 2024 by a judge who ruled it was overly excessive and would give the CEO too much influence over the board.
The EV company is currently appealing that decision and, while it awaits the result, gave Musk an interim stock reward worth an estimated $30 billion.
Currently, the Tesla founder has an estimated net worth of $491.4 billion, according to Forbes, a fortune that makes him the wealthiest person in the world—and one that is almost double that of the second-richest man, Oracle founder and Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison.
Unlike his fellow “super billionaires,” however, Musk claims to live a very low-key lifestyle, eschewing the luxury trappings that many of the world’s richest people indulge in as a result of their extraordinary fortunes.
For years, he has claimed that he resides in a rented property worth around $50,000 that he leases from his space technology company SpaceX and which is located just a stone’s throw from its headquarters in Brownsville, TX.
In a post shared to his X account in 2021, the billionaire claimed: “My primary home is literally a ~$50k house in Boca Chica/Starbase that I rent from SpaceX. It’s kinda awesome though,” adding that, at the time, the only other property he owned was an “events house” in the San Francisco Bay area.
However, in the years since, it has been revealed that Musk does in fact own at least two other homes—one of which is in Austin, TX, where Tesla is headquartered.
News of his ownership of that dwelling emerged after it was revealed that he had become embroiled in a bitter legal spat with his neighbors in the leafy community of West Lake Hills over an enormous 16-foot chain-link fence that he had erected around his $6 million dwelling.
Musk’s fellow residents also voiced complaints about the constant presence of security guards in and around the property, as well as the increase in traffic thanks to the many guests who appeared to be visiting the home at all hours of the day.
The billionaire businessman managed to claim victory on at least one of those points in July after the West Lake Hills City Council voted to allow him to keep the fencing and gates erected at the property, provided that he adjusts their design in order to meet local regulations, according to local news outlet KUT News.
It is currently unclear whether Musk is using the Austin abode as his primary residence, however news of his neighborly feud came not long after the New York Times claimed that the businessman had actually purchased three mansions in the Austin area—for a total of $35 million—that he planned to use to house all of his children, as well as several of the women he shares them with.
Musk is currently confirmed to have fathered at least 13 children since 2002; however, conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair claimed in February that she had welcomed a baby boy with the Tesla founder, who has yet to acknowledge paternity.
He did, however, deny the Times’ report that he was building a compound for his kids.
In addition to his Austin residence, Musk also recently added another property back into his portfolio: a Los Angeles home that was once owned by Hollywood legend Gene Wilder.
The tech tycoon originally bought the property in 2013 for $6.75 million; however, he made the decision to sell it in 2020, when he announced plans to get rid of “almost all his physical possessions,” including Wilder’s former home.
Still, the SpaceX founder made clear his enduring connection to the property, writing in a post shared on X that, while he planned to “own no house,” any person or persons who took ownership of the Wilder property would be barred from demolishing it or making any major changes to its design.
“Gene Wilder’s old house … cannot be [torn] down or lose any [of] its soul,” he stipulated.
Months later, it was revealed that Musk had found the perfect person to take control of the dwelling—Wilder’s own nephew, Jordan Walker-Pearlman. Walker-Pearlman and his wife, Elizabeth Hunter, purchased the home from the businessman for $7 million that same year.
At the time, Musk was hailed for his generosity after it was reported that he had not only sold the home to the couple for under its estimated market value, but had also loaned them a hefty $6.7 million to help them with its purchase.
However, that seemingly sweet scenario quickly turned sour four years later, when Walker-Pearlman and Hunter fell behind on their loan payments, leading to Musk file a notice of default.
That original default notice, which was dated July 29, 2024, stated that the property “may be sold without court action” if the owners had fallen behind in their payments.
Though a public auction of the property was scheduled to be held on Dec. 3, 2024, records filed the following month revealed that the home had been bought back by the same LLC through which Musk originally purchased it.
It’s not currently known what Musk plans to do with the property—having seemingly purchased it the first time around more as a trophy home than an actual residence.
