Elon Musk has reacted to a post about a report claiming that the world’s richest man was the lowest-paid chief executive at Tesla, with his salary being $0. The report by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has created quite a chatter on social media.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Musk’s salary situation at Tesla has remained the same for several years due to an ongoing legal fight over a massive 2018 stock award. Reportedly, the court has denied Musk’s pay package twice, citing that the process of creating it was flawed. The WSJ reported on X and wrote, “Elon Musk was the lowest-paid chief executive of an S&P 500 company last year. Tesla paid him $0.”

The post quickly gained reactions from people, including a remark from Musk himself. While reacting to the share, Musk said he has received nothing as salary for the past seven years. “Zero for seven years, despite increasing the value of the company >2000%,” he wrote.

Social media reacts:

People shared mixed reactions about Musk’s salary. An individual posted, “It’s not like the extra paycheck would make any difference for you financially, though. It must be lovely being able to work for free. I, too, could solve problems and build cool s**t if my parents gave me millions to start.”Another added, “Anyone who understands the tax system knows the reasons you’re not getting paid has zero to do with morals and everything to do with being financially prudent.” A third joked, “You should start a GoFundMe or maybe be a social media influencer so you can buy more TSLA.”A fourth expressed, “Musk’s got the vision, not just the paycheck.” A fifth wrote, “Hopefully, we can solve that for you this year.”

How to calculate the salary of world’s richest man?

The outlet reported that Tesla didn’t respond to their request about this question. However, according to the outlet, there are three possible options for deciding his salary.

1: “Simple payment structure” Alan Johnson, managing director of Johnson Associates, a pay-consulting firm, says Tesla has to firmly tell Musk to “show up.” Johnson referred to the recent controversy in which Elon Musk was accused of paying more attention to DOGE—before his exit from the government agency—than the company.

“Why should Tesla have to pay for that? It’s making some requirements about him being involved, having some succession—and starting to run it like a real company,” Johnson said. “If you stay and create value, you’ll make an awful lot of money. But if you don’t want to be involved or you don’t create value, you won’t,” the executive continued.

“There’s no point in putting out millions when for him that would be irrelevant,” Johnson said, adding, “It would be a lot of billions.”

He suggested that Tesla follow a simple structure for Musk’s pay, paying for stock-price performance.

2: “A CEO’s salary”

Robin Ferracone, founder and CEO of pay-consultancy Farient Advisors, as per the outlet, had a completely different opinion. “You’re paying the person to do an executive job, and you have to separate that from what kind of equity stake they have,” the CEO said, adding, “If he wants a bigger stake in the company, go buy it.”

As per Ferracone, the Tesla board should set Musk’s pay like other CEOs. Ferracone continued that the package could be determined by comparing it to the salaries of Musk’s counterparts—Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai.

3: “Elon Musk gets paid like everyone else”

“I’m on the same mathematical plan as everyone else,” said the top-paid CEO of 2024, Axon’s Rick Smith. He added, “I would love to see other companies copy that.”

Smith discussed a package “tied to a series of targets combining share price and financial measures.”

“Most who could, took a large chunk of pay and deferred,” Smith continued. “We are seeing the benefits of everyone being aligned to the same metrics,” he added.

What do other founder-CEOs get paid?

According to the WSJ, Rick Smith received a $165 million stock award from Axon last year, and Mark Zuckerberg was paid $27 million last year.