Elon Musk's $30bn stock option proves CEO pay in Silicon Valley is 'bonkers'

Tesla granted nearly $30bn of shares to Elon Musk on Monday in a staggering deal aimed at keeping the tech mogul at the helm of the electric car company.

- Patricia Clarke

Musk isn't the only billion-dollar CEO. In the past year, the Palantir boss Alex Karp realised $6.8bn from a 2020 equity award. Hock Tan, who runs the chip maker Broadcom, was awarded $1.15bn.

These swelling executive pay packages reflect soaring stock prices across the tech sector, fuelled by Al hype and a strong earnings season; a deepening "founder culture", in which shareholders are willing to bet big on charismatic leaders to radically transform company performance; and policy changes dating back to the Clinton era but accelerated under Trump, which untethered what US companies can legally pay executives.

CEO pay at S&P 500 companies is up in the US, climbing from an average of $15.5m in 2020 to $18.9m in 2024. Roughly 80% of that now comes from stock or option grants.

Billion-dollar pay packages remain exceptionally rare. The only other executive to reach the milestone - in addition to Musk, Karp and Tan - is Brian Armstrong, CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, who was awarded $2.1bn in 2021.