Elon Musk had a big week.
The CEO of Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX achieved his boyhood dream of launching two American astronauts into space for the first time. He also just got 1.68 million stock options that provided him with a $770 million payday.
The SpaceX flight drew national coverage of Saturday’s launch. Musk’s payday got much less attention, partly because it was already expected to happen. Under a compensation plan approved by Tesla shareholders two years ago, Musk received options to buy 1.7 million shares of Tesla stock at $350.02 a share, well less than half the current price.
The grant was issued because Telsa has achieved some operational goals set out in the plan and has had a market value of more than $100 billion over the course of six months. It hit that market target early in May.
The shares would give Musk a theoretical gain of $770 million as of the close of trading Thursday, the day the options were formally granted. By the close Friday, the value had crept nearly $820 million, and shares were higher once again in early trading Monday.
