It was a $0 pay package when it was granted, while the Tesla market cap was ~$50B. It's now worth $100B because Tesla's market cap is $1.2 trillion. That's how

It was a $0 pay package when it was granted, while the Tesla market cap was ~$50B. It's now worth $100B because Tesla's market cap is $1.2 trillion. That's how stock options work. It was a 12% allocation, in the form of stock option grants to the CEO that were gated on some extremely high performance metrics. He hit most (all?) of those metrics, and as a result Tesla is now among the most valuable companies in the world. Shareholders have gotten a 2800% return on their investment from 2018. In exchange for a 12% dilution in their shares. 12% in new options is on the high end for an executive pay package, but not unheard of. It is only because of the massive success of Tesla under his leadership that this is even an issue. Shareholders got a good deal.