Tesla revokes Musk's $29 billion interim pay package

Tesla has officially revoked the $29 billion interim pay package granted to CEO Elon Musk. The company confirmed the revocation in a quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the US financial regulator) on Thursday morning, noting that its board voted to revoke the interim award on April 21. The board vote excluded both Elon Musk and his brother, Tesla director Kimbal Musk.

The interim package was originally granted in August 2025 to hedge against the possibility of the Delaware Supreme Court (the US state court handling corporate law) rejecting Musk’s appeal of a lower court ruling. That previous ruling struck down the pay package in 2024, which was worth $56 billion and originally granted in 2018, after a shareholder accused the CEO of essentially negotiating against himself in designing it, and not properly informing shareholders of this. During the appeal process, Elon Musk threatened to leave Tesla to develop artificial intelligence elsewhere, prompting the board to draw up the $29 billion interim award. Following the supreme court’s restoration of the 2018 package, Tesla revoked the interim award. In its filing, Tesla stated: “These actions are consistent with the ‘no double dip’ principle, which precludes Mr. Musk from getting a windfall in the event that he may exercise the 2018 CEO Performance Award”.

The revocation of the interim award has no impact on a separate, proposed compensation package worth up to $1 trillion. To unlock that package, Musk must meet several operational milestones over 10 years, which include:

• Delivering 20 million vehicles
• Producing a million robots
• Putting one million robotaxis on the road
• Increasing Tesla’s valuation to more than $8 trillion

Tesla is making estimates regarding which operational milestones Musk might achieve. The company reported an unrecognized stock-based compensation expense of $9.97 billion for milestones considered probable of achievement. Meanwhile, it recorded unrecognized stock-based compensation expenses of between $105.82 billion to $120.37 billion for milestones considered not probable of achievement.

Tesla has also implemented restrictions on how and when Musk can sell shares from the restored 2018 package. To mitigate the market impact of significant share sales, the board requires Musk to remain at the company through 2028 and hold the vested shares for five years.

Why it matters

The move clarifies Tesla’s governance stance on executive compensation, ensuring that the restoration of Musk’s 2018 award does not result in a windfall. It allows the company to pivot its focus toward the ambitious, milestone-based $1 trillion package that ties Musk’s long-term incentives to massive operational scaling.