By BERNARD CONDON
NEW YORK (AP) — The world’s richest man was just handed a chance to become history’s first trillionaire.
Elon Musk won a shareholder vote on Thursday that would give the Tesla CEO stock worth $1 trillion if he hits certain performance targets over the next decade. The vote followed weeks of debate over his management record at the electric car maker and whether anyone deserved such unprecedented pay, drawing heated commentary from small investors to giant pension funds and even the pope.
The vote is a resounding victory for Musk showing investors still have faith in him as Tesla struggles with plunging sales, market share and profits in no small part due to Musk himself. Car buyers fled the company this year as he has ventured into politics both in the U.S. and Europe and trafficked in conspiracy theories.
The vote came just three days after a report from Europe showing Tesla car sales plunged again last month, including a 50% collapse in Germany.
Still, many Tesla investors consider Musk as a sort of miracle man capable of stunning business feats, such as when he pulled Tesla from the brink of bankruptcy a half dozen years ago to turn it into one of the world’s most valuable companies.
The vote clears a path for Musk to become a trillionaire by granting him new shares, but it won’t be easy. The board of directors that designed the pay package require him to hit several ambitious financial and operational targets, including increasing the value of the company on the stock market nearly six times its current level.
