It’s a well-known fact that Elon Musk didn’t receive any salary for being the CEO of Tesla. This is part of a compensation plan the billionaire struck with the company that entails him meeting certain goals for his big a payday. From the looks of it, he’s well on his way to achieving just this considering how well the last few years have been for Musk and Tesla.
Fast Growth

Fortune | Between 2019 and 2020 Musk saw a growth of $100 billion in his company’s value in just over a month, which is quite an impressive feat
According to reports in 2020, the 48-year-old businessman had been getting richer faster than his fellow ultra-wealthy magnates. In fact, he had been pulling in a whopping $400 million every day for the first quarter of 2020. That adds up to a total of $13.5 billion. Moreover, Tesla’s market cap reached over $160 billion and seemed to show continued growth. In comparison, its market cap stood at just $60 billion at the end of 2019.
Going as Planned

Green Car Reports | Tesla was expected to speed past 500,000 in sales in 2020
All of this was certainly good news to Musk. It can be remembered that the billionaire struck a comprehensive compensation plan with Tesla that would have seen him receive $100 billion worth of stock options over the period of 10 years. The plan reportedly had 12 tranches.
One of the first goals set was Tesla hitting a market cap of $100 billion. Musk had already blown through this objective in the first quarter of 2020. When this deal was inked, the automaker was valued at just $50 billion in 2018.
The reward for this achievement was that Musk would receive the first chunk of options. From there, he was set to get more as he pushed Tesla’s value up every $50 billion. He will eventually get the entirety of his compensation when the company’s market cap grows to $650 billion.

Unsplash | Tesla’s stock has also been doing well
On the other hand, Tesla’s stock has also been doing well. Despite the market’s booms and busts, it’s market cap has remained more than forecasts from experts. As it stands, a bulk of Musk’s wealth is his holdings in both SpaceX and Tesla.