The Delaware Supreme Court has taken a historic turn in a legal battle that has lasted for years: it has definitively approved Elon Musk’s compensation package that was approved in 2018, originally valued at $56 billion. This decision puts an end to the judicial dispute that led to the fiscal change of Tesla from Delaware to Texas.
The unanimous ruling of the five judges of Delaware’s highest court considers that canceling the salary package left Musk without any compensation between 2018 and 2024 for his work as CEO of Tesla since You are not assigned a fixed salary in the company. Adjusted for Tesla’s current stock price, which hit all-time highs this week, the value of the stock package you will receive amounts to about $139 billion.
The origin of the judicial conflict. The entire judicial mess over Musk’s salary bonus began in January 2024, when Judge Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery annulled the CEO’s compensation package after a complaint from a group of shareholders, arguing that the billion-dollar remuneration was excessive and unfair to shareholders. McCormick determined that Tesla’s board of directors had not properly informed shareholders about the bonus and that board members lacked sufficient independence from Musk.
This first unfavorable ruling caused an immediate reaction and forceful from the CEO of Tesla. Tesla’s board of directors organized a second vote among shareholders in June 2024 to reaffirm its CEO’s bonus, which was approved with 63% of the votes, although McCormick rejected again this maneuver in December 2024.
The Supreme Court endorses it. The Delaware Supreme Court determined that McCormick’s decision contained several errors and that complete termination of the salary package was an inappropriate penalty. The judges unanimously concluded that voiding the payment had left Musk without any financial compensation for his time and effort during a six-year period as CEO.
Although the high court reinstated compensation to the CEO, it has also imposed on Musk the symbolic payment of an additional dollar and ordered him to pay legal fees, recognizing certain problematic aspects of the original process. The decision marks the closing of a legal battle that has lasted almost two years and that has kept one of the most ambitious executive compensation packages in US business history on hold…at least until the arrival of Musk’s new salary bonus, estimated at a billion dollars.
The conditions met by Musk. The compensation package approved in 2018 consisted of stock options equivalent to approximately 303 million Tesla shares, which represented about 12% of the company’s total equity at the time. The bonus was structured into 12 tranches of stock options that would only be unlocked if Tesla reached a series of milestones in market capitalization, revenue and profits over the next 10 years.
At the time of the plan in 2018, Tesla had a market valuation of approximately $59 billion and was facing serious production and cash flow problems. Musk managed to exceed all established objectives in just five of the ten years planned. In June 2024, when shareholders voted a second time to reaffirm the package, the value of the 303 million stock options to which Musk was entitled had already reached $48.2 billion, with a price of $182. However, in December 2025, with Tesla trading near $481 and a market capitalization around $1.6 trillion, the value of the restored package skyrockets to approximately $139 billion.
A historic boost to Musk’s fortune. With the restoration of this salary bonus, Elon Musk’s personal fortune has skyrocketed to over $749 billion, establishing him not only as the richest man in the world, but as the first person in modern history to get this close to $1 trillion.
This figure represents almost triple the fortune of the second richest person on the planet: the Google co-founder Larry Page, whose assets are estimated at 252,000 million dollars.
Musk is the millionaire best positioned to become the first billionaire in history in the short term, especially if SpaceX goes public in 2026 and the projected valuation of $1.5 trillion is reached. Musk’s stake in SpaceX could exceed an additional $625 billion, which, added to his other investments, could bring his total assets closer to $952 billion.
Image | Flickr (Gage Skidmore), Unsplash (Andreas Rasmussen)
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