One of the worst weeks in Tesla Inc.’s 15-year-history has sapped Elon Musk’s net worth and made the moonshot goals underlying his $2.6 billion award seem all the more audacious.
The electric-carmaker’s stock has tumbled about 20 percent since Musk’s record grant of stock options was approved by investors on March 21. The decline has been fueled by a fatal crash of a Model X car, a recall of about 123,000 Model S vehicles and a credit-rating downgrade.
That’s dimmed the outlook for the chief executive officer to collect any of the options, which will vest in 12 increments if goals tied to market value and either revenue or earnings excluding certain items are met. The market-value hurdles start at $100 billion and increase in $50 billion increments.
Tesla’s market capitalization fell to about $42.6 billion on Monday as shares continued to slide, cutting roughly $400 million off Musk’s net worth at 11 a.m. in New York. He’s lost about $1.9 billion this year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
However, neither Tesla nor Musk are bankrupt yet. The CEO remains one of the world’s richest individuals with his $18.1 billion fortune, and has a full decade to achieve the goals that would trigger vesting of his options.