It’s akin to the advice offered by legendary comedian Steve Martin for becoming a very, very rich person: “OK, first, get a million dollars. Now … “
For Tesla CEO Elon Musk, doubling (and more) his existing wealth is now the easy part.
Musk has supplanted Amazon’s Jeff Bezos as the richest person on the planet, according to Bloomberg, and stands to make an additional fortune because of exercised grants he received last year.
Specifically, he received four grants to buy 8.4 million Tesla shares; those options were each worth $6.2 billion – yes, with a “B” — at Wednesday’s closing price.
So, yes, he was a very wealthy person in January of 2020, but the value of those options alone is more than he was worth just 13 months ago.
At that time, according to Forbes’ billionaire’s list, he was ranked “only” 31st.
But wait, echoing the late-night infomercials, there’s more!
The company’s annual financial filing this week, according to CNN Business story, disclosed three additional options grants available for Musk this year. As of today, those would be worth $18.6 billion.
Tesla’s 2022 financial results are expected to be so positive that the numbers would trigger three additional blocks of options for Musk.
At least Musk is taking his investors along.
“The cachet of Tesla is Musk,” said Daniel Ives, tech analyst for Wedbush Securities, in the CNN Business story. “The reason investors have not batted an eyelash is that due to Musk’s strategic direction, Tesla is on top of the EV (electric vehicles) mountain going to the golden age of EVs.”
When the dust settled at the close of 2020, Tesla stock had risen 743% for the year.
Trading at $154 one year ago, Tesla shares were at $811 on Thursday afternoon.
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