Elon Musk may be rewarded with an additional $ 36 billion this year

 Elon Musk may be rewarded with an additional $ 36 billion this year

Forecasters predict that Tesla will publish upbeat financial reports this year, helping Musk to add tens of billions of dollars in bonus shares.

The richest person in the world is having a rough start to the year. Tesla shares fell 12% at the beginning of the week and continued to drop 1.2% yesterday. In total, over the past year, Musk's stake in Tesla has evaporated by about $30 billion.

However, the next 12 months could be a great time for Musk. If the forecasters are right, Tesla will publish optimistic financial reports this year, helping Musk to add tens of billions of dollars in bonus shares. Forbes currently records Musk owns $241 billion.

Musk does not receive a base salary or cash bonus from Tesla. Instead, he will receive stock options each time the company hits its capitalization and financial goals. The 2018 approval payment package for Musk includes the option to buy 101 million shares, divided into 12 equal installments, that will be awarded to Musk each time the company hits the target.

Elon Musk is currently the richest person in the world. Photo: Bloomberg

Elon Musk is currently the richest person in the world. Photo: Bloomberg

To date, Tesla capitalization milestones have all been completed. 7 out of 12 financial goals were also achieved. In which, 2 milestones are reached in 2019, 2 are reached in 2020 and 3 are reached in the first 9 months of 2021. So far, Musk has received the option to buy 59 million out of 101 million shares.

Analysts expect Tesla to hit its remaining five financial goals this year, giving Musk all of his 101 million-share call options. It is estimated that he will receive 4 rounds of options this year and another in early 2023.

"Given Tesla's growth trajectory, I'd be surprised if Musk doesn't win all five in a year," said Dan Ives, technology analyst at Wedbush Securities.

Each bonus round will give Musk the option to buy 8.4 million shares at a price of $70.01 – the price set in the first option awarded in 2018. At the current closing price of $918, each option Select is worth more than 7 billion USD. 5 installments will be equivalent to more than 36 billion USD.

Even so, when receiving these options, Musk still does not have to pay taxes until he exercises. And billionaires probably only do this when they're close to maturity, which is 2027.

Last year, he exercised a call option of 22.9 million shares expiring in August 2022. This cost the world's richest person a record $11 billion in taxes.

Today, Tesla will release its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2021. Investors are worried about technology stocks, when the US Federal Reserve (Fed) is about to raise interest rates. The fact that Tesla stock has lost 25% since its November peak makes today's report particularly important to investors. They want more information about the plan to accelerate production at 2 new factories and plan to launch the Cybertruck pickup truck.