Most of us can’t even wake up for our 9-5 desk jobs that we are well-paid for, let alone working for free. But when it’s your own business that’s at stake, you’d do anything it takes to help it succeed.
The same is true for tech mogul Elon Musk who claims that he has been working for Tesla for free ever since the company was founded.
Maybe, it’s because Musk doesn’t believe in salaries or his accountant has given him $23 billion reasons why he doesn’t need yet another paycheck, the truth is that he far richer than he has led us to believe.
Why he shouldn’t care about a salary from Tesla, you ask? It’s because he already owns 20% of the company! With a current valuation of $60 billion, a CEO’s salary pales in comparison to the $12 billion which is how much Musk’s shares are worth.
But that’s not all. Musk also has several other companies, the most successful one being Space X, in which he also has a majority stake of $10 billion. So far, Musk hasn’t made a single paycheck from either of his companies. Quite impressive, don’t you think?
But the story of Elon Musk’s net worth doesn’t end there. According to reports Musk could walk away with $100 billion if his company meets certain goals set two years ago by its board. But what exactly are these goals the CEO has to meet?
Musk declared in an interview earlier this year that despite his stake in Tesla and SpaceX, he is actually short on cash and even owes $500 million to investment banks.
While $60 million of this debt has gone into funding his multi-million-dollar homes, the rest is owed to Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. But since all of his wealth is tied to his two companies, these banks won’t be getting their money back anytime soon.
After spending all the cash he made from selling his previous companies on SpaceX, Musk had no choice but to turn to banks to keep Tesla afloat. To get the loan from the two investment banks, the CEO even pledged half of his shares in the carmaker as collateral.
Now Musk has been tasked with the momentous goal of taking Tesla’s market cap to $650 billion over the next ten years upon which he will receive a bonus of $100 billion.
