10 ms·

>- Musk venting with "FREE AMERICA NOW" tweet makes him seem almost crazy Musk is on the verge of a three quarter of billion dollar windfall if Tesla's six mon

• adventured 7y ago
  I doubt it. He's worth $38.5 billion; $26b of that is in Tesla. He can shave off hundreds of millions of dollars from that any day of the week - if he cared to do so. The compensation package is relatively small compared to his existing wealth already contained in Tesla. Wanting the company to succeed is what most likely motivates him, not the compensation package (which is aligned with his existing interests, even if you think he's primarily in it for the $26b (little evidence to support that, he's personally loaded with debt because he refuses to sell, that's called being all in; any good financial advisor would call it dangerous concentration and a poor choice to take on debt instead of selling)).
  • jonny_eh 7y ago
    Then why have a compensation package like that if it's just a rounding error for him? Maybe people like him can't stand to lose out on a dollar, especially when they believe they deserve it.
    • toomuchtodo 7y ago
      Going to Mars isn't cheap.
  • gamblor956 7y ago
    Musk is worth $38.5 billion based on his current Tesla stock holdings at their current valuation. If he hits the trigger in his compensation package, he gets even more Tesla stock which will vastly increase his net worth on paper Also, Musk is loaded with debt because he leveraged his stock holdings to live a very lavish lifestyle, including multiple residential properties, vehicles, and very expensive dining choices.
    • ryanwaggoner 7y ago
      There are no very expensive vehicles or dining choices when you’re worth tens of billions. It’s literally meaningless, like it would be for me if all my meals for a year cost me 1% of a penny.
      • marnett 7y ago
        What about a catered party for 500 with staff and celebrity chef? The wealthy can throw lavish events that are not necessarily a drop in the bucket, especially if common.
        • tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
          Let's say this thing costs $200 per person, so $100k per party. Let's say he does this every day (or throws a 3.5x as lavish party twice a week), that's $36.5M per year. He can do this for 10 years and it will still literally be a rounding error in his wealth.
          • gamblor956 7y ago
            Of his current wealth on paper, yes. But almost all of Elon's wealth is in the form of his stock holdings, and stocks fluctuate in price. Moreover, his cash is almost all leveraged from his stock, and if the price collapses again, he could be wiped out by the margin call.
            • codeisawesome 7y ago
              I want to read a book (or a few!) full of these dynamics of wealth - what it means to be paper wealthy, what leveraging that can do for your lifestyle, and why people live in fear of the margin call. Can I please ask you for any recommendations?
            • texasbigdata 7y ago
              Or....he structured it as "let me borrow 60% of X, and here as some shares worth X as collateral.". Aka synthetically manufactured selling shared without actually doing it in order to fund his lifestyle. Depending on the advance rate (the 60% in this case), someone will do that deal. To take it to the absurd. If Elon wanted to fund his $35M daily party habit in the comment above, and he said to a bank "here is 3 billion in stock as pledged collateral which you can sell when the value goes to $500M but there's no recourse. Cool? Cool. " You would do that deal. So the margin call concept does not seem realistic.
  • madeofpalk 7y ago
    People don’t get and stay rich by not earning money.
    • NotSammyHagar 7y ago
      Unless you say inherited a giant amount from your family, which can cover a lifetime amount of idiocy. Hmm.
  • wfbarks 7y ago
    Bonus probably goes straight to spacex
    • Engineer2Throw 7y ago
      A military contactor? Not sure if you are aware but the money goes from corruption to private individual, not the other way around.
      • justaguy88 7y ago
        It's his personal toy, that just happens to take some military contracts
  • KennethSRoberts 7y ago
    > Monday’s rally put Tesla’s market capitalization at $145 billion. Importantly for Musk, its stock market value reached a six-month average of $96 billion. Hitting a six-month average of $100 billion would trigger the vesting of the first of 12 tranches of options granted to the billionaire to buy Tesla stock as part of his two-year-old pay package. > Each tranche gives Musk the option to buy 1.69 million Tesla shares at $350.02 each. Taking Monday’s Tesla closing stock price of $798.75 as an example, Musk could sell those shares for a profit of $758 million. So it's $750m profit in each of the 12 tranches (assuming $TLSA holds)! That's nearly $9B in profit.
  • new_realist 7y ago
    No. Elon can’t won’t sell his existing shares because he doesn’t want to dilute his voting power. Therefore, to spend money without borrowing, and to repay the debt he has already borrowed against his existing shares, he needs new shares. This makes them very valuable to him.
• nickik 7y ago
  Or it might be the fact that he doesn't want a government to ruin his business when he believes the reasons for the lockdown are not good enough. He has to keep these stocks for 5 years and to get even more money he need to hit even higher targets. Short term trying to hit one of those points is not really productive and that is not how he has ever operated.