This all feels like a sort of suicide pact.

If they don't give Elon massive amounts of cash, then he maybe walks and they pick someone new as CEO and Tesla stock might start getting evaluated like any other stock ... the would result in a pretty sharp downward trend.

Keep Elon and the aspirational (that's the word I picked) stock price maybe holds?

Before the outrage comments pour in, take a look at the conditions he has to meet (per the New York Times):

> ...this 12-step package asks Mr. Musk, the company’s chief executive, to vastly expand Tesla’s stock market valuation — to $8.5 trillion from around $1.4 trillion — while hitting a variety of other goals. Those include selling one million robots with humanlike qualities and 10 million paid subscriptions to the company’s self-driving software.

The headline $1 trillion figure only comes into play if he hits a very lofty goal: 6x the company's valuation and sell a bunch of expensive robots.

I don't think this is nearly as crazy as people are making it seem. It's a huge reward for a goal that seems unlikely to be achievable in a short time frame.

Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45841026

My problem with all this is that Tesla depends too much on one person, Musk.

I shudder to think about what would happen to the stock valuation if he were somehow not able to perform his duties anymore.

That’s why it just feels precarious. I don’t know any other stock that has a bus number of 1.

Maybe Berkshire Hathaway?

Apart from that, the goals/milestones are so huge that the pay package doesn’t seem too crazy.