Elon Musk may be one of the richest people in the world (not to mention one of the craziest) but it turns out he’s also among the lowest paid CEOs in the world, by a huge margin.
According to Tesla reports, Musk earned only $49,920 (approximately Rs 32.13 lakh) last year. That’s the equivalent of an 80-hour work week at US’ minimum wage ($10.50 an hour). By comparison, Infosys CEO Salil Parikh draws about Rs 18.6 crore annually.
Even American households earn an average of about $57,617 each year. On top of that, Musk doesn’t even take that meagre salary home. According to Tesla, he doesn’t accept any of it. So what gives?
Well, that’s because Musk doesn’t really need it. He technically has 37.9 million Tesla, worth about $13 billion. In addition, he’s also the major shareholder in SpaceX, which has been gaining in popularity of late, and therefore value. After the Falcon heavy launch, he’s the 40th richest person in the world, with a net value of $21.4 billion, according to Bloomberg.
The practice of CEOs taking a miniscule or no salary is actually pretty common,, especially if they have a large share of the company’s stock. For instance Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have technically received a $1 salary ever since the company went public. In fact, owner CEOs often put their own salaries into the company when faced with financial trouble. Now, SpaceX and Tesla here aren’t suffering by any means, but they’re both riding a thin red line thanks to the amount of money they’ve been pouring into development.
It’s all for a purpose though. Eventually, once both companies have grown further (SpaceX is on the verge of obtaining a number of space transport contracts), Musk can take a larger salary befitting his position.
Until then, you can feel better about technically earning more than the guy that put an electric sports car onto a rocket headed out to the asteroids.
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