Like much CEO pay, Musk's pay package is more about status than about motivating him.
Or is someone really going to try to make the case that he's kinda half-assing it right now?
Yes there is. Presumably, if Musk proposed a compensation package, it’s because he wants that compensation, and if the compensation is tied to uncertain milestones, he’ll be motivated to get the thing he wants by trying to achieve those milestones. It’s not as though someone proposed this to Musk and he said, “yeah sure, whatever.”
> Like much CEO pay, Musk's pay package is more about status than about motivating him.
Status can be very motivating. Obviously no one is in it for the “marginal utility of wealth” at the level of wealth Musk has, but the ability to pay for basic needs strikes me as a pretty one-dimensional way to view the way money can be motivating.
Extremely wealthy people still clearly pursue more wealth, so it’s pretty straightforwardly motivating in some sense.
> Or is someone really going to try to make the case that he's kinda half-assing it right now?
It’s not really a matter of “half-assing”, it’s a matter of further aligning someone’s goals with the organization they’re leading. Your implication here seems to be that someone can’t do a better job than they’re doing unless they’re slacking.
For the average person, but who are you to decide? He clearly already spends his money productively by largely self-funding ambitious projects, and I suspect that he would be pursuing even more if he had infinite resources.
So even if the utility of the funds isn't consequential, a package like this might be one if the few ways to further incentivize a CEO like Musk.
Bill Gates for instance, although his model seems to be give it all away to good causes he believes can accomplish good. Elon still seems to believe more in his own capabilities to accomplish worthwhile things with it.
I expect he too has a little txt file somewhere on his desktop, with various amounts as milestones to unlock the next project.
Maybe at $22 billion he can afford to start asteroid mining and in orbit construction or something that would top his current accomplishments.
So I'm guessing he'd take that money and just privately fund SpaceX, like Jeff Bozos is doing with blue origin.
If his goal is to colonize Mars and you want him to sell cars, a good way to do that is to say "sell cars for 10 years and we'll give you enough capital to do in the following 10 what you couldn't do in 20 from today."