Musk's wealth 1,105 trillion won… first-ever surpasses 700 billion dollars

A $500 billion gap with Larry Page, Google's co-founder in 2nd place

Elon Musk, Tesla's chief executive officer (CEO), saw his wealth jump to 749 billion dollars (1,105 trillion won) following a court ruling recognizing the company's compensation plan.

Reuters reported this on the night of the 19th (local time), citing the Forbes billionaire index. It said this is the first case in history of an individual's wealth exceeding 700 billion dollars (1,033 trillion won).

This follows the Delaware Supreme Court on the 19th dismissing the claim of the plaintiff minority shareholders in the appeal over Tesla's 2018 CEO compensation plan and recognizing the CEO compensation that included stock options.

The size of the stock options corresponds to about 9% of Tesla's issued shares, and at current share prices the value amounts to 139 billion dollars (205 trillion won). As Tesla's share price shot up from about $20 per share in 2018 to nearly $500 now, the value of the stock options also rose.

Separately, at last month's Tesla shareholders' meeting, a plan was approved to provide Musk with compensation of up to 1 trillion dollars (1,476 trillion won), the largest in corporate history, if he meets management goals such as a market capitalization of 8.5 trillion dollars.

Earlier, on the 15th, reports that the space development company SpaceX was likely to go public pushed his estimated wealth on the Forbes billionaire index over 600 billion dollars (885 trillion won), the first time this had happened.

As of the 20th, the wealth gap between Musk and Larry Page, Google's co-founder and the world's No. 2 richest person, had widened to almost 500 billion dollars (738 trillion won).

Ko Jeong-sam Hankyung.com reporter jsk@hankyung.com