Elon Musk has just gotten even closer to being the first-ever trillionaire after a court reinstated his Tesla stock options worth billions.
According to Forbes’s billionaires index, the Tesla chief executive’s net worth climbed to $749bn (£559bn) on Friday, making Musk the first person to surpass the $700bn milestone.
He is already the world’s richest man, and around $500bn (£373bn) richer than the second-richest, Google co-founder Larry Page, the index reports.
It follows the Delaware Supreme Court’s ruling to reinstate his 2018 Tesla stock options worth $139bn (£103bn), which were rescinded last year.
That year, Musk was awarded a pay package including stocks worth $56bn (£41bn) at the time, but it was struck down in a lower court in 2024 as the compensation was “unfathomable”.
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Delaware judge Kathaleen McCormick concluded after a five-day trial that Tesla’s directors were conflicted and key facts were hidden from shareholders when they voted to approve the plan.
On Friday, the state supreme court ruled that rescinding the pay package left the Tesla head “uncompensated for his time and efforts over a period of six years”, and that Ms McCormick’s verdict had been improper and inequitable.
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As is his style, Musk has not issued a formal statement responding to the restoration of his options, but did say in a reply on his social media platform X that he was “vindicated”.
If Musk exercises all the stock options from the 2018 package, his stake in Tesla would grow from about 12.4% to 18.1% of an expanded share base.
It was Tesla’s largest ever pay package, until the electric vehicle company awarded Musk a pay plan worth up to $1trn (£747bn) this November.
It was approved by 75% of shareholders, but to pay out in full, Mr Musk must achieve five milestones in the next decade:
• Deliver 20 million Tesla vehicles and one million robots;
• Drive 10 million subscriptions to Tesla’s self-driving feature;
• Bring one million self-driving Robotaxis into operation;
• Earn as much as $400bn in core profit;
• Lift Tesla’s market value to $8.5trn.
Under the agreement, Musk will not receive a salary, but meeting all targets would see him receive more than 400 million extra shares in Tesla.
If the company’s value is raised to the target, those would be worth around $1trn. As of writing, Tesla is valued at $1.51trn (£1.12trn).
