Elon Musk now has another reason to colonize Mars besides appealing to his massive ego. Board members of SpaceX are dangling a lucrative pay package in front of the billionaire to keep him focused on his ambitious goal of setting up a human habitat on the Red Planet.
The board approved a compensation plan for the company founder that’s contingent on a few key goals ahead of SpaceX’s initial public offering, Reuters reported. According to SpaceX’s confidential registration statement recently filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, reviewed by Reuters, the pay package will award Musk 200 million in super-voting restricted shares if the company hits a market value of $7.5 trillion and succeeds in establishing a colony on Mars with at least 1 million people.
The pay package also has additional incentives of 60.4 million in restricted shares if SpaceX meets separate valuation goals and operates space-based data centers with at least 100 terawatts of processing power.
Occupy Mars
Musk has long dreamed of a Mars colony, building SpaceX with a vision of an interplanetary human species as the end goal. The founder and CEO has reiterated his plan to send one million people to Mars by 2050 for years, preaching that the fate of humanity is at stake if not for the prospect of a permanent habitat on the Red Planet.
SpaceX’s Starship is at the heart of Musk’s vision for Mars, but the rocket is still in development. Musk had previously argued that using the Moon as a stepping stone for Mars would be a distraction, but the SpaceX founder recently switched up on the company’s priorities. Earlier this year, Musk said SpaceX has “shifted focus toward building a self-growing city on the Moon.” Achieving this new goal, he said, will potentially take less than a decade, whereas colonizing Mars would take more than 20 years.
Musk’s overly ambitious timeline may have caught up with him as Starship continues to lag behind. Now, the billionaire’s talk of a one-million-people-strong Mars colony is spelled out in his compensation package.
No reward without risk
SpaceX confidentially filed for its initial public offering (IPO) on April 1, with a targeted public debut expected by late June at a valuation of approximately $1.75 trillion.
The board’s approval of a compensation plan for the richest person in the world might be a desperate attempt to keep Musk focused on SpaceX’s long-term plans. The board’s valuation targets are not tied to a specific timeline. If the company fails to reach the outlined goals, however, Musk will not receive a single share.
Musk is currently worth an estimated $773.9 billion, according to Forbes. If the SpaceX founder manages to hit his target of a Mars colony, he could become a whole lot richer. Aside from trying to save humanity by relocating to a different planet, money is also a pretty good incentive.
