How do you get a company to pay you a trillion dollars?
On November 6, 2025, Tesla shareholders approved a compensation package for Elon Musk worth up to $1 trillion over 10 years. Seventy-five percent voted yes.
Past performance wasn’t a talking point. Instead, shareholders bought into a future no company has yet achieved. And they did so despite declining sales, increased competition, political backlash, and proxy advisors suggesting rejection.
The psychology behind that decision offers valuable lessons in selling long-term vision, even when reality says otherwise.
The Audacious Ask
Impossible goals capture attention because they reframe rational.
For perspective, all S&P 500 CEOs combined earned $9 billion last year. Musk’s package, conservatively, equals $8.8 billion annually.
But there’s a catch. To activate it, Tesla must:
- Reach a $8.5 trillion market cap—70% higher than Nvidia’s
- Deliver 20 million vehicles per year
- Deploy 1 million robotaxis
- Manufacture 1 million humanoid robots
It’s the largest executive pay plan ever proposed, 33 times bigger than the previous record. And it sailed through.
That outcome says less about the numbers and more about the power of belief to move markets, even when the data looks bleak.
Vision Overrides Reality
There’s a gap between what companies sell and what people buy. Tesla’s financials and market position don’t fully explain its valuation or its investor loyalty.
The gap is psychological. Vision drives behavior. Here are the key forces behind that disconnect.
Valuation operates on belief
Tesla’s stock has traded at over 1,600 times earnings. For perspective, competitors like Ford and GM sit around 20 times earnings.
Investors know this. Instead of pricing at today’s output, they’re speculating on a future Tesla promises to deliver.
“I think it’s going to be the biggest product of all time by far. So like bigger than cell phones, bigger than anything.”
—Musk on humanoid robots, CNN
Customers connect with mission over reliability
Tesla owners report higher brand excitement than owners of any competitor. They also report more quality problems than any other carmaker.
These facts coexist comfortably. A mission to “accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy” and a vision to “create the most compelling car company of the 21st century” are the actual products people buy. The car is the vehicle for a feeling.
Shareholder logic is rooted in identity
Musk framed the package around control, not compensation:
“If I go ahead and build this enormous robot army, can I just be ousted at some point in the future?”
—Musk on control vs. compensation, NBC News
He made shareholders co-owners of a future vision. Every vote represents a choice about which future they want to inhabit.
Despite performance dips, market share losses, and political controversy, Tesla’s retail investors held firm. The believers acknowledge these problems. But they see them as irrelevant to the larger bet.
As one analyst put it, “They love the cars.” But more importantly, they love what owning Tesla means.
When Belief Survives Performance
Vision is easy to support when things are going well. The real test comes when performance stumbles.
In Tesla’s case, 2025 delivered a series of hits: falling sales, political backlash, and eroding brand perception. But belief held.
The stress test
The 2025 data wasn’t working in Musk’s favor. Sales declined. Market share slipped. Research showed Elon Musk’s political activity drove over 1 million potential customers toward competitors like Ford, GM, and Hyundai.
Yet betting markets gave the $1 trillion compensation package a 93% chance of approval. It passed with a comfortable 75% shareholder majority.
The deeper message: short-term turbulence doesn’t matter when you’re building something unprecedented.
Why belief held
Board Chair Robyn Denholm warned that without it, shareholders risked losing Musk’s “time, talent and vision, which have been essential to delivering extraordinary shareholder returns.”
This is where vision-driven branding evolves beyond messaging. When stakeholders invest in a destination, setbacks along the route become part of the story, not reasons to get off the ride.
The network effect of belief
Tesla sells electric cars, but it also produces something more powerful: a system of owners-turned evangelists.
It built a system where customers earned rewards for promoting the brand. That referral structure creates a powerful feedback loop. Once you see yourself as part of the mission, outside criticism stops being threatening. It becomes noise from people who “don’t get it.”
“If we fail to foster an environment that motivates Elon to achieve great things through an equitable pay-for-performance plan, we run the risk that he gives up his executive position.”
— Board Chair Robyn Denholm, CBS News
Marketer Takeaways
Most of us aren’t trying to reach trillion-dollar valuations or build robot armies. But the tactics that got 75% of Tesla shareholders to approve an impossible package scale down beautifully.
- Quantify the ambition. Lofty goals gain traction when backed by specific numbers: think market size, product targets, and impact milestones.
- Sell the future, not the present. Audiences invest in where your story is going, not where it stands today.
- Turn belief into buy-in. When people feel ownership in your vision, they become advocates, not just followers.
- Build a vision that can take a hit. The strongest brand stories inspire loyalty even when the path gets rocky.
- Frame risk as purpose. Big stakes aren’t a liability; they’re a call to action.
- Make ambition a shared experience. When the mission feels audacious, people want in on the ride.
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