Elon Musk’s $1 trillion pay day gets more ridiculous the more you look into it (upd.)

Summary

<div class="feat-image"><img src="https://electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/05/Elon-Musk-Tesla-Money-hero.png?w=1600" /></div><p>Tesla, a company that prides itself on not advertising, is in the midst of a serious marketing effort. In doing so it’s exploiting employees, attacking shareholders, and retaining outside strategy firms to help it advertise.</p> <p>It’s running these ads not to boost its <a href="https://electrek.co/2025/08/05/tesla-sales-in-europe-are-in-free-fall-and-the-pain-is-just-starting/">falling sales</a>, but rather to advocate for another unprecedented award for its CEO, which would keep the company stuck with him for years even as <a href="https://electrek.co/2025/10/22/tesla-tsla-releases-q3-2025-financing-results-earnings-decline-despite-record-revenue/">earnings drop precipitously</a> under his direction.</p> <p>(<em><strong>Update:</strong> This article, originally posted 10/18, has now been updated to acknowledge Musk’s comments this week on corporate terrorism and on his desire to “control” an “enormous robot army”)</em></p> <a class="more-link" href="https://electrek.co/2025/10/25/elon-musks-1-trillion-stock-award-gets-more-ridiculous-the-more-you-look-into-it/#more-438727">more…</a>