Elon Musk could still pocket tens of billions more dollars. But he might have to wait a bit

By Chris Isidore, CNN

New York (CNN) — Elon Musk isn’t getting the $101 billion windfall he so desperately wanted. But he’s still among the richest people on the planet and poised to get much richer in the coming years.

Delaware Chancery Court Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick again threw out a 2018 pay package from Tesla that gave him options to buy 304 million shares of the company at the bargain price of $23.34 a share, a small fraction of Tesla’s trading price Tuesday of more than $350 a share.

She wrote that even though 84% of shareholders other than Musk and his brother Kimbal had once again approved the options package since her initial decision throwing it out in January, a pay package that gives this much wealth to the company’s CEO was not fair to shareholders and her previous decision rejecting it remains in force.

Musk, in response, accused McCormick of being “a radical far left activist cosplaying as a judge.”

But there’s no need to set up a GoFundMe page for Musk. He remains one of the richest people on the planet, if not the richest, even with the loss of a 12-figure pay package. And there are numerous ways in which Musk can accumulate significantly more wealth in the months and years ahead, even if he’s not successful challenging the court decision.

Get a smaller pay package

Musk could simply enrich himself to a slightly lesser extent.

With the package thrown out, Musk has essentially not been paid since the last of the stock options awarded to him in a 2012 pay package vested in 2018. Musk does not receive any cash salary or other bonuses, only stock options, as compensation. But the increase in value of those shares of stock and options have catapulted Musk’s net worth from about $20 billion in 2018 to more than a dozen times that amount, even without the 2018 package.

Tesla attorneys had argued that it was not right that he shouldn’t be paid anything at all due the options package being voided by the judge. And they said it was important for the company’s future that Musk be enticed to remain focused on the company with all his other interests — he’s also the CEO or primary shareholder of rocket company SpaceX, social media platform X, artificial intelligence company xAI, as well as neurotechnology company Neuralink, and excavating and tunneling company The Boring Company.

Add to that his new role as a close adviser to President-elect Donald Trump and the co-head of an effort to cut waste from the federal government, it’s clear he has plenty to do beside pay attention to a company that isn’t paying him at all.

He also prolifically posts his thoughts on X, often over 100 times a day, and claims to be among the top players of a video game globally.

But McCormick wrote in her decision Monday that she’s not opposed to Musk receiving some form of compensation, just not one as massive as the 304 million stock options.

“The court did not find that the board should have paid Musk nothing. There were undoubtedly a range of healthy amounts that the board could have decided to pay Musk,” she wrote.

Get a new pay package

Rather than settle for slightly less, Musk could negotiate an entirely new pay package starting this year.

Even before the decisions against his 2018 pay package, Musk had been talking about his desire for a new pay package that would give him even more control over Tesla. The 411 million shares of Tesla he currently owns gives him control over about a 13% stake in the company.

With the additional 304 million shares, he would control just over 20%.

But not even that would be enough for Musk. In January, just before McCormick’s decision invalidating the pay package, he wrote he would not want to grow Tesla to become a leader in artificial intelligence and robotics — areas where he promised growth — without a compensation plan that would give him ownership of around 25% of the company.

That would be about double the roughly 13% stake he currently owns, without those 2018 options.

“I am uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI & robotics without having ~25% voting control. Enough to be influential, but not so much that I can’t be overturned,” Musk tweeted in January. “Unless that is the case, I would prefer to build products outside of Tesla.”

It might seem like a new pay package would run into the same problems with Delaware courts. But earlier this year Tesla shareholders approved shifting Tesla’s state of incorporation away from Delaware to Texas. So Delaware courts would have not authority over any future pay package.

Get richer from other companies

The 411 million shares he already owns outright were worth $147 billion as of Monday’s close, which helps both Bloomberg’s and Forbes’ real time billionaire tracker put his net worth over $330 billion.

While that includes some valuation for the now rejected options, he is at least the second richest man already without the options, behind only Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and perhaps just slightly ahead of Bezos, depending on which estimate is used.

Much of the rest of the wealth comes from his holdings in SpaceX, which is the most valuable privately held company. Bloomberg estimates he owns 42% of SpaceX, which adds $88 billion to his net worth. Bloomberg also reported Monday that SpaceX is planning to offer shares now held by private investors for sale, at a price that would increase the value of the company to $350 billion. That would raise the value of his stake to $147 billion.

His other companies have relatively modest valuations but are still substantial. Forbes estimates that xAI is worth $50 billion and that he owns 54% of its shares, so $27 billion worth of its privately held stock. But artificial intelligence has been a hot sector for investors in the last year, and it could also see increased valuation going forward.

Get richer if Tesla becomes more valuable

Not everyone on the list of richest people got there through increasing packages of stock options.

For example, Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, who co-founded Facebook, both took large stakes in their companies as founders but neither has received stock grants or options since those companies had initial public offerings in 1997 and 2012, respectively.

Shares of Tesla have shot up 42% in the four weeks since election day, as investors are betting that President-elect Trump will follow policies that will help his “first buddy.” That rise in Tesla stock alone has lifted the value of his 411 million shares by $43.4 billion.

But that’s only a small fraction of the potential gains for Tesla shares in the years ahead.

If the company’s stock does as well as Musk and his fans predict, his current holdings would appreciate in value so much that current value of the just-thrown-out pay package would seem like an afterthought.

Ark Invest has a five-year target price for Tesla shares at $2,600 a share. That would be a more than 600% gain from its current value, something that would lift its total market cap to about $8 trillion, or more than the current values of Microsoft and Apple, combined, by 2029.

Musk told investors at the company’s annual meeting he believes that Ark’s estimates are realistic, as he said the company’s plans to roll out true self-driving cars and taxis as well as robots in the coming year will lead to a huge increase in profits.

On the other hand, even Musk has said his own predictions have been overly optimistic, including when he first predicted that his cars would be able to drive themselves across the country by the end of 2017.

As of this writing, no Tesla available to car buyers is able to operate without a human driver behind the wheel.

Still if Musk’s vision does come true and Tesla shares do reach that $2,600 price target, his current 411 million shares would be worth $1 trillion, making him the world’s first trillionaire, even without any further gains from SpaceX or xAI or his other holdings.

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