Elon Musk could be on track for a $1trn (£761bn) pay package – if Tesla meets a series of extremely ambitious targets over the next 10 years.

The world’s richest man has the potential to become a trillionaire after the controversial plans were approved by shareholders.

However, it won’t be easy. As part of the agreement, Musk will need to deliver 20 million Tesla vehicles over the next decade – more than double the number churned out over the past 12 years.

He will be tasked with dramatically increasing the company’s valuation and operating profits.

Another requirement is for Tesla to roll out one million AI-powered robots – despite the fact it hasn’t released a single one so far.

Musk will also need to come up with a succession plan on who will replace him as the chief executive of Tesla.

As each step is successfully completed, he will receive more company shares and his ownership stake will rise – potentially from 13% now to almost 29%.

And even if Musk falls short of some of these targets, he could end up earning a lot of money.

Figures from Forbes magazine suggest the 54-year-old already has a net worth of $493bn (£375bn) – and while that means he has more money than anyone else on the planet, he isn’t the richest person in history… yet.

That title belongs to John D. Rockefeller, the railroad titan who had wealth of $630bn (£480bn) back in 1913 – when adjusted for inflation.

Why?

Now is the moment Tesla wants to innovate, develop into robotics, self-driving and embrace the growth of artificial intelligence (AI).

It’s seeking a visionary leader to spearhead this move. And a lot of Tesla’s market value is tied up in this ambition.

Tesla’s board of directors, who oversee the management of the business, are adamant that only Musk can make the lofty ambitions a reality.

Some believe there’s no one else like Musk.

More shares in the company are “critical to keep Musk at the helm to lead Tesla through the most critical time in the company’s history”, said financial services firm Wedbush.

“We believe this was the smart move by the board to lay out these incentives/pay package at this key time as the biggest asset for Tesla is Musk … and with the AI revolution, this is a crucial time for Tesla ahead with autonomous and robotics front and centre.”

“Getting Musk’s pay package approved will be a big step towards advancing Tesla’s future goals,” Wedbush analysts wrote.

Opposition

Not everyone is in favour of the pay package.

Major investor advice firm Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) warned the 10-year pay agreement reduces the board’s ability “to meaningfully adjust future pay levels in the event of unforeseen events or changes in either the performance or strategic focus of the company over the next decade”.

In a note, ISS said: “The high value of each tranche could also potentially undermine Musk’s desire to achieve all goals and create significant value for shareholders”, and that the goals “lack precision”.

Mr Musk has described ISS and another major adviser, Glass Lewis, as “corporate terrorists”.

There was speculation he would walk away from the business if the package was not agreed on.

The Bank of England has voted to leave interest rates on hold at 4%, but a knife-edge split on its Monetary Policy Committee suggests a cut may be coming very soon.

The nine members of the Bank’s MPC voted 5-4 in favour of leaving borrowing costs unchanged, in the face of higher-than-usual inflation in recent months.

Money blog: Good news for mortgage holders could be on way

The Bank’s chief mandate is to keep inflation – the rate at which prices have changed over the past year – as close as possible to 2% and, all else equal, higher interest rates tend to bring down prices.

However, consumer price index inflation was at 3.8% in September, higher than anywhere else in the G7 group of industrialised nations.

However, unveiling a new set of economic forecasts today, the Bank said it expects inflation has now peaked, and will drop in the coming months, settling a little bit above 2% in two years’ time.

The Bank’s decision comes only three weeks ahead of the budget, which will lead some to suspect that it held off a rate cut so it could reassess the state of the economy post-budget.

The chancellor has signalled that she is likely to raise taxes and trim back her spending plans – something that could further dampen economic growth.

The governor, Andrew Bailey, said: “We held interest rates at 4% today. We still think rates are on a gradual path downwards but we need to be sure that inflation is on track to return to our 2% target before we cut them again.”

The Bank said that, so far at least, tariffs had contributed to slightly lower than expected inflation.

It said it expected gross domestic product growth of 1.2% next year and 1.6% the year after. This is all predicated on the presumption that the Bank brings its interest rates down from 4% to 3.5% next year.

The fact that four MPC members voted for a cut in rates – and the hint from the governor that more cuts are coming – will contribute to speculation that the Bank may cut rates as soon as next month, shortly before Christmas.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that, the day after Guy Fawkes night, the Bank of England held off from lighting any economic fireworks at Threadneedle Street on Thursday.

No interest rate cut. No dramatic change to the economic forecast.

Money blog: Good news for mortgage holders could be on way

After all, the budget is coming up in only a few weeks and it threatens to be a very big one indeed, chock full of tax rises and spending cuts that could cast a pall over economic growth. As it usually does when something like that is looming, the Bank chose to pull its head back, turtle-like, into its shell.

But there’s no escaping the fact that rather a lot is going on beneath the surface, both at the Bank and the economy itself. We are, for one thing, reckoning with the consequences of a trade war ignited by Donald Trump, which is already having a far-reaching impact on the flows of goods around the planet.

Global and cyber factors

Consignments that once upon a time would pass from China to the US are now being diverted to other countries with lower tariffs, and there are few countries in the world with lower tariffs, particularly on China, than the UK.

This flood of cheap Chinese imports is becoming a notable economic factor, the Bank said in the Monetary Policy Report (MPR) published alongside its decision on Thursday.

Nor is that the only thing going on beneath the surface. For the first time ever, the Bank has had to reckon with a cyberattack having a bearing on its GDP forecasts, with the Jaguar Land Rover shutdown markedly affecting GDP in recent months.

Food inflation is proving stubbornly high – and not just any food inflation. The Bank’s MPR recounts that “inflation among four components – butter, beef and veal, chocolate and coffee – which make up only 10% of the food CPI basket, is currently contributing nearly two percentage points to overall food inflation”.

Then there are the bigger macroeconomic forces it is trying to gauge.

How worried should it be, for instance, that with inflation at 3.8%, households are increasingly coming to expect that high inflation will persist rather than coming down? How much do those inflation expectations trigger higher wage settlements and, in turn, higher inflation further down the line?

Reasons to cut

On the flip side, the economy is hardly motoring right now. The Bank expects insipid growth of 1.2% next year. This is a long, long way from the government’s stated ambition to have the strongest growth in the G7. And growth is, in part at least, weaker because of higher interest rates.

On balance, it’s hard not to escape the conclusion that were we not a few weeks away from a budget, the Bank would have cut rates. But as things stand, that rate cut, heavily hinted at on Thursday, might have to wait until December or, maybe, February.