Elon Musk Just Got $29 Billion From Tesla And He Isn’t Going Anywhere Soon

Tesla’s board of directors has awarded CEO Elon Musk 96 million company shares worth approximately $29 billion to make up for the loss of a $50 billion pay package that was thrown out by a Delaware court last year.

The board called it a “good faith” payment suggesting that it aims to find a way to eventually get him the full $50 billion in a new deal.

The shares come with the stipulation that Musk must remain in a top executive role for at least two years and that he has to hold them for at least five years. After that he can pay $23.34 per share to exercise them. Tesla stock was $308 per share at the time this story was published. A further compensation plan is expected to be addressed during Tesla’s investor meeting on November 6.

The deal is meant to make it worth Musk’s while to stay at the helm of the automaker, which has seen a big drop in sales over the past year, but has already started recovering as Musk has moved away from his involvement in politics and advising the Trump administration on cost-cutting and other matters.

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Musk has recently said that he is back to sleeping at the Tesla factory as it works to launch a new low-cost model, the Robotaxi service and the autonomous Cybercab designed for it, along with other products.

The new efforts to reinvigorate the company come as an S&P Global report shared with Reuters found that Tesla customer loyalty dropped from 73% in June 2024, just before Musk endorsed Trump for president, to 49.9% this March. It had increased to 57.4% in May as Musk’s tenure with the presidential administration was wrapping up.