Tesla shareholders vote to pay Musk up to $274 million per day for the next decade

Not bad for a part-time job

On Thursday, Tesla shareholders overwhelmingly approved Elon Musk’s record-setting compensation package. The terms of the deal allow Musk to receive up to $1 trillion over 10 years, provided he meets several key benchmarks, including the sale of 1 million humanoid robots, the delivery of 20 million vehicles, and the operation of 1 million commercially viable robotaxis.

Tesla said the pay package is intended “to keep Elon’s time, energy, and considerable talents focused on Tesla for years to come and create jaw-dropping value for our shareholders.”

If he meets all the benchmarks in the package, Musk would be paid $274 million every day — $11.4 million per hour — for the next 10 years.

Musk must remain as the company’s chief executive for seven and a half years before he can vest any shares from the new compensation plan. He currently holds a 13% voting stake in Tesla. The package could provide Musk with up to an additional 12% stake in the company.

With a net worth of roughly $473 billion, Musk is already the wealthiest person in the world.

Trump renominates Musk ally to lead NASA

Donald Trump renominated billionaire Jared Isaacman to lead NASA on Tuesday. The president made the move four months after Isaacman donated $1 million to Trump’s fundraising operation and more than $170,000 to the Republican National Committee.

Trump initially nominated Isaacman, a SpaceX customer and Musk ally, to lead the space agency in January. The president then withdrew the nomination in May amid his feud with Musk, suggesting at the time that Isaacman’s past donations to Democrats made him unsuited to serve in the administration.

However, this week, Trump revealed that he had changed his mind, writing on Truth Social, “Jared’s passion for Space, astronaut experience, and dedication to pushing the boundaries of exploration, unlocking the mysteries of the universe, and advancing the new Space economy, make him ideally suited to lead NASA into a bold new Era.” He did not mention the $1 million his organization received from Isaacman.

Isaacman is now set to replace Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who is serving as the interim head of NASA. The change could benefit Musk. Duffy and Musk have frequently clashed, with the most recent incident arising after Duffy threatened to pull the multi-billion-dollar Artemis III contract NASA has with SpaceX to return astronauts to the moon.

This Week in Musk:

• SpaceX is reportedly in line to secure $2 billion from the Pentagon to develop missile tracking satellites as part of the Golden Dome, Trump’s dubious nuclear defense project. (Wall Street Journal)

• Last week, SpaceX shared a blog on its website reviewing its progress on the Artemis III lunar landing mission. “In response to the latest calls, we’ve shared and are formally assessing a simplified mission architecture and concept of operations that we believe will result in a faster return to the Moon while simultaneously improving crew safety,” the company said. The Starship vehicle that SpaceX plans to use for the mission has suffered numerous development setbacks. (Reuters)

• xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, used biometric data from employees to train its sexually explicit chatbot and AI “companion.” (Wall Street Journal)

Altman rattled by questions over OpenAI’s revenue

OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, has signed more than $1.4 trillion worth of infrastructure deals in just the last few months as it scrambles to build a sprawling network of data centers. But the company is expected to generate just $13 billion in revenue this year, according to estimates recently shared by OpenAI’s chief financial officer. The massive gulf between the amount OpenAI plans to spend and the revenue it generates has become a significant concern for Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive.

During an interview with podcaster and OpenAI investor Brad Gerstner last week, Altman contradicted his CFO, claiming that OpenAI will have “well more revenue” than $13 billion. Gerstner proceeded to ask Altman how “a company with $13 billion in revenues [makes] $1.4 trillion of spend commitments? You’ve heard the criticism, Sam.”

“Brad, if you want to sell your shares, I’ll find you a buyer,” Altman shot back. “Enough.”

“I think there’s a lot of people who talk with a lot of breathless concern about our compute stuff or whatever that would be thrilled to buy shares,” he continued. “We could sell your shares or anybody else’s to some of the people who are making the most noise on Twitter about this very quickly.”

This Week in Altman:

• During another podcast appearance, Altman suggested that OpenAI would be the first company led by an AI CEO. “Shame on me if OpenAI is not the first big company run by an AI CEO,” he said. (Business Insider)

• Sarah Friar, the chief financial officer of OpenAI, said Wednesday that OpenAI is not yet planning to go public. “IPO is not on the cards right now,” Friar said during the Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live event. “We are continuing to get the company into a state of constantly stepping up into the scale we are at, so I don’t want to get wrapped around an IPO axle.” (Wall Street Journal)

• At the same event, Friar said that OpenAI plans to receive a “backstop” or “guarantee” from the federal government to help finance its more than $1 trillion AI infrastructure spend. The comments sparked concerns that OpenAI was pursuing a federal bailout, leading Friar to walk them back in a subsequent LinkedIn post. “I used the word ‘backstop’ and it muddied the point,” she wrote. “As the full clip of my answer shows, I was making the point that American strength in technology will come from building real industrial capacity which requires the private sector and government playing their part.” (CNBC)

Zuckerberg’s illegal Palo Alto school

At the sprawling Palo Alto compound owned by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, the couple illegally operated a school for as many as 30 students, according to a report from Wired:

The documents reveal that the school may have been operating as early as 2021 without a permit to operate in the city of Palo Alto. As many as 30 students might have enrolled, according to observations from neighbors. These documents also reveal a wider problem: For almost a decade, the Zuckerbergs’ neighbors have been complaining to the city about noisy construction work, the intrusive presence of private security, and the hordes of staffers and business associates causing traffic and taking up street parking.

Over time, neighbors became fed up with what they argued was the city’s lack of action, particularly with respect to the school. Some believed that the delay was because of preferential treatment to the Zuckerbergs. “We find it quite remarkable that you are working so hard to meet the needs of a single billionaire family while keeping the rest of the neighborhood in the dark,” reads one email sent to the city’s Planning and Development Services Department in February. “Just as you have not earned our trust, this property owner has broken many promises over the years, and any solution which depends on good faith behavioral changes from them is a failure from the beginning.”

Zuckerberg and Chan have three school-aged children.

This Week in Zuck:

• The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the philanthropic organization founded by Zuckerberg and his wife, has unveiled a new plan to concentrate its funding on AI research and science. “When we started, our goal was to help scientists cure or prevent all diseases this century,” Zuckerberg said at a Thursday event. “With advances in AI, we now believe this may be possible much sooner.” (Axios)

• Meta estimated that 10% of its revenue last year “would come from ads for scams and banned goods,” according to a report from Reuters. (Reuters)

• The Motion Picture Association issued a cease-and-desist order to Meta for using the “PG-13” rating system to guide its Teen Accounts. “The MPA’s ratings program is a rigorous, human-driven process where every film is carefully assigned an individualized rating and content descriptors. Whatever mechanism Meta uses to moderate content cannot responsibly be compared to that comprehensive process,” the MPA said in a statement. (Deadline)

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Oligarch Roundup

Amazon blames mass layoffs on workplace “culture” adjustment. Andy Jassy, the chief executive of Amazon, said the company’s decision to fire 14,000 workers “was not really financially driven and it’s not even really AI-driven, not right now, at least. It’s culture.” On an earnings call last week, Jassy added that the layoffs were meant to keep Amazon “lean” during an era of “technology transformation.” (CNN)

GOP leaders and billionaires met to plan the party’s post-Trump future. During a 2019 meeting in Ohio, several top conservative figures, including right-wing billionaire Rebekah Mercer and media personality Tucker Carlson, convened to map out the future of the Republican Party. The group, which dubbed itself the “Rockbridge Network” and is receiving funding from tech leaders, ultimately chose J.D. Vance as Trump’s ideal successor. (Washington Post)

Thiel-backed kamikaze drone startup fails in military trials. Stark, a German attack drone company backed by right-wing billionaire Peter Thiel, suffered a disastrous showing during a pair of exercises with the British and German armies. The drones reportedly failed to strike a single target. (Financial Times)

Palantir CEO throws a fit over short bets. While on CNBC, Alex Karp, the billionaire head of Palantir, had a meltdown over hedge funder Michael Burry shorting his company’s stock to the tune of $912 million. “They are actually shorting one of the best businesses in the world. Pick something that is not doing a noble task,” said Karp, before calling Burry’s behavior “egregious” and “batshit crazy.” Burry, who was depicted in the 2015 film The Big Short, is famous for predicting the 2008 housing bubble. Palantir’s stock is down 12.14% this week. (CNBC)