Tesla shareholders approved Elon Musk’s trillion-dollar compensation plan, contingent on ambitious performance targets over ten years.
In the early hours today, across the Pacific, Tesla formally launched a trillion-dollar wager.
Amid chants of “Elon! Elon! Elon!” from shareholders and a dance featuring Musk and the Optimus robot, over 75% of voting shareholders approved Musk’s trillion-dollar compensation package.
This means that if Musk meets all performance targets within the coming decade, he will receive equity awards worth up to $1 trillion. After accounting for estimated costs, his maximum personal gain could be $878 billion.
To put RMB 6.26 trillion ($878 billion) in perspective: based on 2024 provincial GDP rankings in China, the figure is just below sixth-place Henan Province (RMB 6.36 trillion).
Musk’s excitement was obvious: “This is a whole new book for Tesla’s future—an amazing story.”
Whether approved or not, the package was always a high-stakes gamble.
Musk faces four broad objectives over 10 years:
- Tesla’s market capitalization rising from $1 trillion to $8.5 trillion;
- Delivery of 20 million vehicles;
- Delivery of 1 million AI robots;
- 10 million FSD subscriptions.
If Musk meets most—or all—of these goals, the outcome would be widely celebrated. If he falls short, misalignment between CEO incentives and shareholder returns could trigger backlash; failure could even force Musk out.
So now that the trillion-dollar plan has passed, how will Musk advance? And what did supporters and opponents say?
Three commitments
Celebration aside, Musk’s ambitions require hard plans.
Accordingly, he laid out several key commitments at the shareholder meeting.
They fall into three main buckets.
First: chips
To secure next-generation chip production, Tesla will continue working with TSMC, Samsung, and possibly Intel. But that’s insufficient, Musk said; Tesla may need to build a “large chip fab” to manufacture more affordable, power-efficient chips.
Tesla also previewed the AI5 chip.
Slides at the meeting showed AI5 offering:
– 10× raw compute;
– 5× quantization and softmax efficiency;
– 9× memory capacity;
Overall, ~50× performance versus AI4.
Musk said AI5 could consume only one-third the power of Nvidia’s Blackwell at similar performance, with less than one-tenth the cost—pointing to substantial gains in compute efficiency, sensor data handling, and cost.
In practice, this would mean major advances in scene complexity, response speed, and coverage, supporting finer urban perception and faster model iteration. AI5 is meant to push assisted driving toward full autonomy.
Tesla expects AI5 samples in 2026 and volume production in 2027. AI6 is planned for 2028, delivering 2× AI5 performance.
Musk hopes to transition from AI5 to AI6 within a year, with both chips produced at the same site and metrics doubled. He did not explicitly confirm that the shift would occur at a Tesla-built fab, though the plant appears central to the plan.
Beyond lowering costs and enabling scale for FSD and Optimus, Musk noted his personal fascination with chips:
“I’m obsessed with chips—you may have noticed. I think about chips all the time. I dream about chips.”
Second: new vehicles and FSD timeline
Musk laid out an unusually detailed schedule.
The long-awaited Roadster will be unveiled on April 1, 2026, with production slated to begin 12–18 months later—around mid-to-late 2027.
A new semi-truck will launch in 2026. Both the new Semi and the Cybercab, which enters production April 2026, will feature 4680 cells.
The Roadster—a pure-electric sports car—carries added symbolic weight for Tesla loyalists.
The company first acknowledged Roadster plans on November 17, 2017, promising 2020 sales. From that announcement to its 2026 reveal spans a decade.
If 2020 marked Tesla’s breakout, 2026 could mark the start of its second surge.
At the meeting, a shareholder—voice trembling after nearly 10 years of waiting—asked Musk for a ticket to the Roadster event.
Musk did not disclose Roadster volume goals but did detail Semi and Cybercab plans.
The Semi is targeted at 50,000 units per year. Musk is highly bullish on Cybercab output: he envisions 5–10 seconds per unit, enabling annual volume to scale from 500,000 to 2–5 million units.
He forecast total Tesla production at 2.6–2.7 million units in 2026, 4 million by end-2027, and 5 million by end-2028. For reference, Tesla produced 1.7734 million vehicles in 2024.
Underlying this ramp is FSD capability.
Official data showed FSD cutting collisions by 85%, preventing 35,000 fatal crashes and 2 million injuries. With FSD, one accident occurs every 4.92 million miles versus a U.S. average of one per 700,000 miles.
Musk also said Tesla could achieve “unsupervised FSD” in coming months.
He addressed regulatory approvals in Europe and China—top investor concerns.
As expected, Europe has not yet approved FSD. Surprisingly, Musk said full approval in China could arrive as soon as February–March next year.
If so, China—by far the world’s largest EV and smart-vehicle market—would help Musk chase his 10 million FSD-subscription target.
Finally: Optimus
Under the compensation plan, Optimus must reach 1 million annual deliveries.
Musk said Optimus would cost under $20,000, dramatically improving commercialization prospects and pushing the robot from labs into factories and homes.
The Optimus V3 prototype will debut in early 2026. Tesla aims to produce 50,000 units in 2025, paving the way for 1 million deliveries by 2030.
Musk’s ambitions go further: he plans a Texas site with 10-million-unit annual capacity.
Such projections reflect his belief that humanoid robots could eventually number in the billions—with consumer:industrial use at roughly 1:3 to 1:5.
He says Tesla holds three key capabilities: dexterous hands/forearms, physical-world AI, and mass production—areas where “others usually lack one or more.”
The exclusivity is debatable. China’s Xpeng recently drew attention with its highly anthropomorphic IRON Gen-2 robot; Unitree and others are also advancing humanoid systems.
Regardless of doubts about Musk’s timeline, the trillion-dollar package gives him powerful incentive to deliver.
Transfer of power?
The package’s passage came as little surprise.
Ahead of the vote, major investors—including Norway’s sovereign wealth fund and CalPERS—signaled opposition, while proxy advisers like ISS warned of risks. By contrast, retail shareholders overwhelmingly backed Musk.
Both the atmosphere and the vote matched expectations.
Pre-vote surveys showed over 75% of retail shareholders supporting the plan—almost identical to the final tally. Division among large holders further smoothed the approval.
Models warning of dilution and governance risk were no match for Musk’s personal pull. Retail investors’ trust and admiration prevailed.
Cathie Wood—often called Tesla’s biggest fan—projected Tesla shares at $2,600 by 2030, reinforcing the pro-vote camp.
As Musk put it, “Tesla’s success has always been built on bold, measurable plans,” with Musk himself at the center.
At its core, the vote is about ensuring Musk dedicates his scarcest resource—time and attention—to Tesla.
The package buys not only Tesla’s hoped-for future but also roughly 7.5 years of priority commitment from Musk.
Beyond Tesla, his schedule is strained by SpaceX, xAI, and other ventures. The trillion-dollar award effectively purchases priority rights to his attention.
Under the plan, Musk—who owns 13% of Tesla—earns 1% of Tesla stock for each of 12 market-cap and operational milestones met, potentially raising his stake to 29%.
If Tesla does not exceed $2 trillion in market cap, Musk receives no award. And for 7.5 years, he cannot liquidate the shares.
Risks abound.
For example, New York State’s comptroller noted a new rule enabling Tesla to block derivative lawsuits unless plaintiffs hold 3% of shares. Under such thresholds, only Musk and a few major funds could sue derivatively.
The proposal was met with boos in the room.
Shareholders also supported maintaining a two-thirds supermajority requirement for major resolutions and rejected proposals on sustainability and child-labor audits.
To outsiders, these moves weaken minority protections and relax ESG oversight.
Opportunity and risk now coexist: Tesla shareholders have effectively wagered the next decade on Musk’s vision and execution over traditional governance safeguards.
Will Musk win again?
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