Kimbal Musk, Tesla board member and brother of CEO Elon Musk, has earned nearly $1 billion from his position on the company’s board since 2004, according to an analysis by compensation specialist Equilar.
Tesla shares closed Friday up 13.65% year to date, trading only $30 below the all-time high of $488.54 reached a year ago.
Kimbal Musk’s earnings are based on the appreciated value of stock options held or liquidated over two decades.
Latest Sale
Kimbal Musk sold approximately $25.6 million worth of Tesla shares last week as the stock trades near record highs.
The filing shows Kimbal sold 56,820 shares on December 9 at a weighted average price of $450.66, with individual transactions ranging from $450.44 to $450.90.
He also gifted 15,242 shares to a donor-advised fund, a donation worth roughly $6.8 million based on the execution price.
Following these transactions, Kimbal still holds 1,376,373 shares of Tesla directly.
Based on Friday’s closing price of $458.96, the shares are valued at more than $631 million.
Board Wealth Accumulation
The findings, published Monday by Reuters, reveal Tesla directors have collectively earned more than $3 billion through stock awards that far exceeded those given to peers at other major US tech companies.
Director Ira Ehrenpreis has collected $869 million since 2007, while board chair Robyn Denholm has made $650 million since 2014.
Between 2018 and 2020, the average Tesla director received approximately $12 million in cash-and-stock compensation, about eight times as much as the average director at Alphabet, the next highest-paid among the “Magnificent Seven” technology companies over the same period.
Directors reaped such windfalls even though they haven’t awarded themselves new stock grants since 2020.
Tesla‘s board agreed to suspend director compensation starting in 2021 to settle a shareholder lawsuit alleging excessive board-member pay.
Despite four years of suspended pay, Tesla directors’ average compensation between 2018 and 2024 was still two-and-a-half times that of Meta directors, the next highest-paid over the seven-year period, according to Equilar.
Tesla’s Response
A Tesla spokesperson told Reuters the directors’ compensation “is not excessive but directly tied to stock performance and shareholder value creation.”
The statement added that board members provide extraordinary service to Tesla and devote “substantial time and effort,” noting they attended 58 full-board or committee meetings in 2024, which the spokesperson said was well above industry norms.
