Elon Musk set to collect $23bn bonus after Tesla reports record quarter
Financial windfall comes as billionaire tries to buy Twitter
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Your support makes all the difference.Tesla boss Elon Musk is set to receive a $23bn bonus after the electric vehicle company reported record quarterly profits.
Mr Musk, who is already the world’s richest person with a personal fortune of $260bn, is set to collect the staggering bonus after leading the company to its share price and growth targets.
During its earnings announcement, Tesla said that during the first quarter of 2022 it had made a profit of $3.3bn on revenue of $18.8bn.
In 2018 Tesla handed Mr Musk, who does not take a salary, a bonus scheme that would pay him up to $55.8bn in bonuses if he turned it into a $650bn company within 10 years.
The South African-born entrepreneur hit that mark in January 2020, and as of Friday morning Tesla was worth $1.02 trillion.
His financial package includes 12 sets of bonuses that allows Mr Musk to buy 8.4m Tesla shares, worth $1,019 each on Friday morning, at a massively discounted price of just $70.
The payments have to be signed off by the company’s board and Mr Musk, 50, is required to hold the shares for five years before selling.
Mr Musk’s windfall comes in the wake of him making a $43bn cash offer to buy social media platform Twitter.
In a securities filing, Mr Musk says he has has received commitments for $46.5bn to help him pay for the deal, which Twitter’s board is trying to fight off with a “poison pill” strategy.
He says that he has secured $25.5bn in debt financing from Morgan Stanley Senior Funding and other firms, including Bank of America, Barclays, MUFG, Societe Generale, Mizuho Bank and BNP Paribas.
Mr Musk has also committed around $21bn in equity financing.
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