Elon Musk explains why he wants to receive a $1 trillion reward

Tesla’s CEO is waging a media campaign to convince shareholders to vote for his trillion-dollar bonus.

Elon Musk said he wanted to use the bonus to further his plans to develop the humanoid robot Optimus. Photo: Reuters .

As the vote approaches, Tesla has launched a massive media campaign to convince shareholders to back a plan to dilute the value of its shares and give the CEO more power. The $1 trillion compensation package would cement Elon Musk’s leadership role at Tesla for the next decade.

He believes that the current ownership ratio of about 13% is not enough, and wants to reach about 25%. On October 22, during Tesla’s third-quarter results announcement meeting, the CEO shared for the first time the real reason behind that demand.

Musk has repeatedly stated that he wanted the bonus to gain more power in the company, not for the money. He said that he was not comfortable building AI without enough control over the technology and shared his ambition to control a “robot army”. True to this thinking, he founded xAI, an AI company that directly competes with Tesla.

“My fundamental concern is how much money and control I have at Tesla. If we build this robot army, do I have at least some degree of influence over that robot army,” Musk said.

The above sharing was in response to the challenges of bringing Optimus, Tesla’s humanoid robot, to market. However, Electrek commented that Musk’s candid thinking deviated from the original question.

He has previously publicly expressed concerns about AI, and has said he wants to participate in its development to ensure its safety. However, the discussion has been about Musk’s desire to control his robot army, not directly about protecting humanity from AI.

Notably, Tesla’s third-quarter results also did not support Musk’s leadership ability. Despite the increase in revenue, Tesla’s profit fell to $1.4 billion from $2.2 billion in the same period last year (about 37%).

Tesla sold more cars, but its profit per car fell as it slashed prices and offered low-interest loans for its best-selling models. This month, the company continued to cut prices, launching stripped-down versions of its Model 3 sedan and Model Y SUV for about $5,000 less than their lowest-priced models.

This is the final earnings report before Tesla shareholders vote on whether to approve CEO Elon Musk’s compensation package. Analysts expect Tesla to deliver the strongest quarterly report possible ahead of the vote at its annual shareholders’ meeting on November 6.

For Musk’s fans, sales and profits are no longer the most important measures of Tesla’s success. They value the company based on expectations for its future businesses, primarily self-driving taxis and humanoid robots, according to the NYT .

However, these two areas have not yet reaped much success. Tesla’s self-driving cars still require human intervention when they make mistakes. The Optimus robot, which recently performed impressive kung fu moves, still cannot deliver popcorn properly and is rumored to be remote-controlled.

Tesla’s third-quarter sales were boosted by a wave of US consumers taking advantage of federal tax incentives for electric vehicles, which expired at the end of September. Analysts expect sales to decline in the coming months, coupled with President Trump’s decision to eliminate regulations on clean-emissions credits, one of Tesla’s main sources of revenue.