Tesla founder Elon Musk did not take a salary in 2014, choosing to instead pay his particularly modest wages back into the company.
Musk only awards himself the minimum wage salary for the work he does at Tesla, with his total compensation package in 2014 coming in at $35,360, a sum which Tesla had calculated using the “annualized minimum wage requirements” under Californian law, the state where the company is based. However, Musk decided to waive the salary, with it instead being put back back in the company.
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Don’t feel too sorry for him, though. It’s estimated that Musk received over $78 million in options and cash within the course of the year, with him also holding 35.3 million in Tesla shares, equating to a fortune of around $7.8 billion. That’s without taking into account the money earned from his other successful company, SpaceX. In other words, he likely spends $35,360 a month on luxury toilet paper.
Despite not being paid a salary, Elon Musk still earned a LOT of cash from Tesla Motors.
So the claims that Musk “worked for free” last year are a little exaggerated. It’s technically true, at least in regards to his position at Tesla, but he certainly picked up more money than the vast majority of people on this Earth. This news comes after the report that Musk neared bankruptcy in 2013, before striking up with a deal with Larry Page that would have seen Google purchase ownership of Tesla, with Musk working for the search engine giant in order to continue the production of Tesla’s electric cars.
Fortunately for Musk, his fortunes quickly turned around after the deal was outlined, and both he and his companies have gone from strength to strength since then, making him a multi-billionaire.
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