Elon Musk lands $1T pay deal as SpaceX board signs off

Elon Musk is staring at another $1 trillion payday, as the board on Tuesday night approved of a comprehensive plan to give Elon massive super-voting stock.

The compensation will only be given to him if SpaceX reaches a $7.5 trillion valuation, puts a permanent human population on Mars, and builds space-based data centers with compute power so large it sounds like something only this company would put in paperwork.

The plan was shown inside SpaceX’s private registration filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in recent weeks. SpaceX is still privately held, but it is preparing for a possible IPO around June 28, Elon’s birthday, at a possible value of about $1.75 trillion.

That alone would put the rocket company in the same weight class as the biggest public names, while Tesla (TSLA) shareholders also watch the same CEO chase another huge award outside the electric vehicle business.

SpaceX gives Elon huge voting power if he delivers Mars settlers and a $7.5 trillion valuation

SpaceX’s board approved the compensation plan in January. The largest part gives Elon up to 200 million restricted shares if SpaceX reaches a market value of $7.5 trillion and creates a lasting human settlement on Mars with at least 1 million people living there.

The filing turns a Mars dream into a corporate pay target. No vague hype. No soft language. It puts a population number beside a valuation number and links both to Elon’s stock award.

A second part of the package gives Elon as many as 60.4 million restricted shares from an award dated March 23. That part depends on separate company value targets and SpaceX running data centers in outer space that can provide at least 100 terawatts of computing power.

That power figure is massive. 100 terawatts equals 100,000 gigawatts, or about 100,000 nuclear reactors of one gigawatt each running at the same time.

Both stock awards use Class B restricted shares. Each Class B share carries 10 votes, while each Class A share carries 1 vote. That gives the package a control angle, not just a money angle. The shares vest in parts as SpaceX grows in value.

Elon gets none of those shares if SpaceX fails to hit the board’s targets. The plan does not have a calendar deadline, except that he must keep working at the company. Since 2019, SpaceX has paid him a yearly salary of $54,080.

SpaceX cannot place a clean dollar value on the package yet because its shares do not trade publicly. Elon already held 68.8 million Class B stock options as of December 31. Those earlier options have a strike price of about $42 and expire in 2031, so any gain above that price belongs to him if he exercises them before they lapse.

California settles with SpaceX after launch fight while Tesla investors face another Elon problem

Elon is already worth about $776 billion and Cryptopolitan reported last year when shareholders approved of his first $1 trillion pay at Tesla. Right now, Elon owned about 20% of Tesla as of November.

The SpaceX award may create friction between SpaceX investors and Tesla shareholders. Elon runs both companies, and corporate governance experts have warned that investors may question how much attention each business gets when both have giant targets attached to him.

SpaceX is also ending a separate fight in California. The California Coastal Commission apologized to Elon’s rocket company and settled a lawsuit filed after SpaceX accused the agency of political bias against the company and its chief executive.

The settlement was disclosed on Tuesday in federal court in Los Angeles. The commission accepted that some members made improper comments during a 2024 hearing about SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch program.

The settlement agreement said, “The Commission agrees that it may not consider irrelevant factors in performing its function and specifically agrees that it will not take into account the perceived political beliefs, political speech, or labor practices of SpaceX or its officers in considering any regulatory action concerning SpaceX.”

Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free.