The Ultimate Performance Review: Musk’s Pay Is a Ten-Year Final Exam

Think of Elon Musk’s new compensation package as the ultimate performance review—a single, decade-long final exam that will definitively grade his tenure as Tesla’s CEO. The terms are clear, the grading is harsh, and the result will determine his ultimate legacy.
The exam questions are the milestones laid out in the plan: Can you grow the company to $8.5 trillion? Can you successfully deploy a million robotaxis? Can you build and deliver a million useful AI bots? These are not theoretical questions; they require real-world, verifiable answers.
The grading is brutally simple: it’s pass/fail. If he achieves the targets, he passes and receives a historic, A-plus reward of over a trillion dollars. If he falls short of key thresholds, he fails and gets a zero. There is no curve and no partial credit for “good effort.”
For the next ten years, every move Musk and Tesla make will be part of this high-stakes exam. Shareholders are being asked to be the proctors, to approve the test and then watch as he attempts to pass it. The final grade, when it comes in a decade from now, will be one for the history books.