NEW YORK – Tesla tallied up Mr Elon Musk’s annual compensation for the first time since shareholders approved his moonshot pay package, and it’s a doozy: US$158 billion (S$200 billion).
The 2025 total was revealed in a regulatory filing late on April 30, about six months after investors signed off on a US$1 trillion stock award for the electric-car maker’s longtime chief executive officer.
The staggering figure is exceptional even in the context of increasingly large packages for executives seen as visionary and essential to the success of the companies they lead.
Mr Musk turned Tesla into the EV market leader – and became the world’s richest person in the process – though the manufacturer has struggled of late with rising competition out of China and a relatively stagnant product lineup.
The billionaire recently has turned his attention to other parts of his business empire, particularly the rocket maker SpaceX, which is attempting to stage the biggest initial public offering of all time in June.
The April 30 filing offered new insight into the overlap between his companies, revealing that Tesla generated more than US$500 million in revenue in 2025 from selling products to other Musk-run companies.
The bulk of the sales – about US$430.1 million – came from doing business with xAI, Mr Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, Tesla first disclosed in January.
The automaker added this week that it also recognised another US$143.3 million in revenue from SpaceX.
Bloomberg News reported in April that SpaceX likely purchased more than US$100 million worth of Cybertrucks, the company’s slow-selling electric pickup, in the fourth quarter of 2025.
The new disclosure on Mr Musk’s head-turning pay came with some major caveats.
There may be “significant disconnect” between what the company reports as Mr Musk’s total compensation in a given year “and the value actually realised”, Tesla said in the filing.
There are several reasons the disclosed figures are uncoupled from reality.
For one, the unprecedented pay package awarded in 2025 consisted entirely of equity award grants. It was structured so that the CEO will only cash in if Tesla’s stock soars and the company achieves various operational milestones.
Since Tesla did not reach any of the market value or operational targets set in 2025, Mr Musk’s total realised compensation was zero. He has not earned a salary from the company for years.
The total compensation figure included the maximum grant date fair value attributed to the award Mr Musk received in 2025, assuming all performance conditions will be achieved. Tesla reported that fair value at around US$132 billion.
The remainder of the total compensation – just over $26 billion – is the grant date fair value attributed to an interim award that Tesla’s board approved for Mr Musk in August.
Mr Musk ended up forfeiting that payout in April 2026 due to the reinstatement of a 2018 compensation package. BLOOMBERG
