Elon Musk is the world's wealthiest person. He is set to become even richer and become the very first dollar trillionaire. He was awarded a new remuneration package by Tesla shareholders at the company's annual general meeting (AGM) last week. Seventy-five per cent of shareholder votes backed a stratospheric pay deal of $1 trillion. It consists of up to 423.7 million shares of Tesla stock over the next 10 years. This would increase Mr Musk's stake in Tesla from about 13 per cent to almost 29 per cent. It depends on Musk increasing Tesla's market value to $8.5 trillion.

Shareholders were encouraged to back the deal to stop Mr Musk from potentially leaving Tesla. The Tesla board warned of a "possibility that he may pursue other interests should [the deal] be denied". It said Musk was needed "to achieve goals that others will perceive as impossible, but that we know are possible for Tesla". An industry analyst agreed. He wrote: "Tesla needs Musk to take it into the autonomous driving, robotic future." Mr Musk hopes to change Tesla's focus to selling self-driving cars, "Cybercab" robotaxis, and "Optimus" humanoid bi-pedal autonomous robots.