Elon Musk pay tied to Mars colonization of 1 million people, SpaceX reveals

SpaceX’s board has approved a compensation plan for CEO Elon Musk. But here is the twist, the founder’s pay package hinges on his widely recognized futuristic celestial goals.

The pay package approved by the board is structured around various conditions. First, Musk will be awarded with 200 million in super-voting restricted shares, if the company reaches the valuation of $7.5 trillion and achieves extra-terrestrial goals, including establishing a permanent colony with at least 1 million people on Mars.

The awards consist of Class B shares, which carry 10 votes per share, further strengthening Musk's control over the company.

Although details of Elon Musk’s pay package are still unknown, the recent revelations were reported by Reuters after reviewing the company’s registration statement.

An additional 60.4 million shares are associated with operating data centers with q00 terawatts of compute capacity in outer space, equivalent to 100,000 one-gigawatt nuclear reactors running all at once.

In the case of failure to meet these celestial goals and high valuation, the CEO of SpaceX will receive no shares and continue receiving the salary of only 54,080.

The announcement comes after SpaceX is reportedly targeting an IPO around June 28, 2026, with an initial target of approximately $1.75 trillion.

Competition over Musk’s attention and presence have been growing since both Tesla and SpaceX are bidding against each other. Tesla previously called for a generously increasing pay package for Musk to grab his focus on EVs. On the other hand, SpaceX is using these Mars colonization based goals to keep him tied to the company.

Being already the world’s richest person with an estimated worth of $776 billion, these pay packages, if approved, could double Elon Musk's net worth.

However, the use of non-financial metrics instead of standard revenue is causing concerns among the corporate sector. Executive compensation expert Eric Hoffmann, chief data officer for corporate governance consulting firm Farient Advisors, said, “I’m not a physicist ⁠or astronomer and I wouldn’t know where to start. The measuring stick is, has it been done in human history? These haven’t. So that’s hard.”

"What’s interesting about ⁠this situation is now, SpaceX and Tesla, both effectively controlled by Elon Musk, are now bidding against each other for his attention," Hoffmann said.