$30 billion? That’s a lot of cheddar (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Tesla board approves nearly $30 billion Musk stock award, says “retaining Elon is more important than ever”

Analyst Dan Ives thinks the 96 million new shares will be enough to hold on to Musk through 2030.

8/4/25 8:19AM

Tesla shareholders and stakeholders pin a lot of value on having Elon Musk as CEO, and they showed just how much on Monday morning.

Tesla’s board approved an “interim” stock award of 96 million shares for Musk, valued at nearly $30 billion at Tesla’s Friday closing price. He can claim it in two years if he remains at the company as CEO or an executive officer, and if he doesn’t win the appeal for his prior $56 billion pay package, which has been struck down twice.

Shareholders cheered the move, sending shares up 2.5% in premarket trading. So if you’re counting, the pay package has added about $23 billion in market cap to the company this morning.

In a note on X, two members of the Tesla board’s special committee wrote that “now is the right time to take decisive action to recognize the extraordinary value that Elon created for Tesla shareholders” and that retaining Musk is “more important than ever.”

Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives is happy and thinks it will help retain Tesla’s “big asset.”

“We believe this grant will now keep Musk as CEO of Tesla at least until 2030 and removes an overhang on the stock,” Ives wrote this morning. Still, he added, the board will need a long-term compensation strategy ahead of the company’s November shareholder meeting.

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Roblox answers Google’s Project Genie, launching the open beta for its “4D” AI creation tool

Roblox on Wednesday launched the open beta of its “4D” AI creation model, less than a week after the launch of Google’s Project Genie, an AI-powered interactive world generator.

The tool allows users to generate interactive objects that can be used in gameplay, such as a drivable car or a flyable plane, as opposed to static 3D objects.

Roblox’s “4D” system relies on rule sets called schemas that create objects out of multiple parts, allowing cars to have a body and movable wheels, for example.

“We expect to soon include schemas that cover the range of thousands of objects in the real world,” the company said.

The move to bring the tool out of early access and into open beta appears to be a response to Google’s Project Genie, which allows users to generate “playable” worlds out of a text or image prompt. Gaming stocks like Roblox, Take-Two, and Unity Software have dropped in the days since Project Genie’s release, though Wall Street analysts largely believe the market reaction to be unjustified, as interactivity through Google’s tool is limited.

Roblox's 4D creation feature is now available in open beta | TechCrunch

Roblox’s “4D” system relies on rule sets called schemas that create objects out of multiple parts, allowing cars to have a body and movable wheels, for example.

“We expect to soon include schemas that cover the range of thousands of objects in the real world,” the company said.

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Tom Jones

chips are down

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PepsiCo is cutting snack prices across the US, with consumers “feeling the strain”

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