Elon Musk bought on Friday shares in Tesla worth about $1 billion, a regulatory filing showed on Monday, just over a week after Tesla’s board proposed an unheard of $1-trillion pay package for the Tesla CEO if the EV maker reaches major production, innovation, and market capitalization goals.
Musk bought the Tesla shares indirectly through a revocable trust on Friday, a week after Tesla proposed “a super ambitious incentive package for a pioneering, ambitious and unique CEO”. This package could be worth about $1 trillion in total if Musk leads Tesla to a series of market and performance milestones, including growing the company’s market capitalization to at least $8.5 trillion over the next 10 years, from about $1.1 trillion today.
The CEO Performance Award “uniquely challenges Elon to guide Tesla through a new phase of unprecedented growth by rewarding him — only if he delivers (once again) extraordinary financial returns for you, the shareholders, and remains at Tesla in a leadership role for many years to come,” Tesla said in the 2025 proxy statement.
After the filing showing Musk’s acquisition of $1 billion worth of Tesla stock, shares in the EV manufacturer Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) jumped by more than 7% in pre-market trade on Monday on the NASDAQ.
However, Tesla’s stock is down 1.96% year to date, after major declines in March and April, also due to Musk’s involvement in politics and his very public departure from Donald Trump’s team over disagreements about trade and tariffs, among other things.
Musk has a lot of work to do to restore investor confidence and try to reverse the backlash on Tesla’s sales worldwide from his foray into politics.
Musk said on the Q2 earnings call that Tesla faces some “rough quarters” ahead, with sales down both in Europe and China.
Musk has also openly criticized the U.S. EV policy changes enacted by the Trump Administration, calling the new tax law a “disgusting abomination.” Musk has acknowledged that “we are in this transition period where we will lose a lot of incentives in the U.S.”
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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