Elon Musk's Incredible Wealth Surge: A Deep Dive Into Tesla's Market Growth

Back in December, we reported on the fact that Elon Musk doesn’t take a salary for his work at Tesla. Instead, he has a compensation plan that could be worth up to $100 billion if he meets certain goals. If the first month of 2020 is any indication, he’s not just going to meet those goals; he’s going to blow right past them. So far in 2020, Elon Musk is getting richer faster than any other billionaire, or any other person, for that matter.

He has made $400 million PER DAY or $16 million PER HOUR since January 1. He’s made $13.5 billion since the first of the year. Back in December, we also reported that Tesla’s market cap was $60 billion. At the time of this writing on Tuesday, February 4, Tesla’s market cap was $163.3 billion and gaining. That means the electric car maker has added more than $100 billion to its value in a bit over a month.

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Let’s recap Musk’s compensation plan, because it suddenly seems a whole lot less crazy. Back in January 2018, the board of Tesla presented a compensation plan for Musk that could be worth $100 billion. Musk will receive up to $100 billion in stock options over a decade if he (and Tesla) meets certain goals called tranches. There are 12 tranches to this plan. He gets the first chunk of options when Tesla hits a market cap of $100 billion (which has been achieved). At the time the plan was announced, Tesla had a market cap of about $50 billion.

After that, Musk gets another one of the tranches each time Tesla’s market cap increases by another $50 billion (which has been achieved for $150 billion). If Musk can grow Tesla to a $650 billion market cap, he will earn the entire $100 billion. Of course, Musk’s primary source of wealth is his stock holdings in Tesla and SpaceX. Tesla’s stock has been on a run.

The stock has continued to surge as the company beat analyst estimates in its third-quarter earnings report back in October. As of this writing, Tesla stock has more than doubled since January 2nd’s price of $430.26. It is currently trading at $887.06 as of the close of trading on Tuesday, February 4.