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SpaceX-Tesla merger would not vest Musk's $1 trillion Tesla award, Reuters says
Reuters, carried by CNA, said Tesla and SpaceX boards formed merger committees and pay specialists expect only a sliver of Tesla's $1 trillion award at a deal, not the operational targets.
- CNA is now reporting this
- New headline Was: “Musk’s pay under a SpaceX-Tesla merger: voting control, but no $1 trillion payday”
- Our desk filed its story
Based on reporting by CNA
Wire reporting: (Reuters, via CNA)
A SpaceX-Tesla combination would likely increase Elon Musk's Tesla voting power without vesting the full $1 trillion stock award in Tesla's 2025 pay plan, according to a Reuters review carried by CNA1.
Musk said on a SpaceX earnings call last month that both boards had formed special committees to discuss a potential merger, CNA reported, citing Reuters1. Reuters said it reviewed the compensation documents with six executive-pay specialists1.
Those specialists said a deal would at first likely give Musk only a small portion of the Tesla award, and that SpaceX's board could later recast his SpaceX plan1. Musk has not met any of the Tesla plan's targets, the report said; even if he met all of them, including raising Tesla's market value nearly eightfold, last year's board documents would leave him with about 29 percent of Tesla voting power1.
One Tesla tranche would issue him $20 billion of shares at a $2 trillion valuation, though the plan pays only for stock growth after the award was announced in September 2025, according to the wire1. On the SpaceX side, tripling the company's value and sending 500,000 people to Mars would still not vest the shares under the current formula, Reuters said1. Equilar estimated the SpaceX award at $719 billion at the highest market-cap target on current shares outstanding1.
Kevin Murphy, a University of Southern California finance professor who previously testified for Tesla on Musk's 2018 pay package, told Reuters he expects the boards to keep the frameworks and raise market-cap and earnings hurdles for a larger combined firm1. Whether any merger proceeds, and how either board would rewrite the awards, is not established in the public filings cited1.
