Elon Musk exercises all stock options with valuation gain of 176 trillion won

Valuation profit: 176 trillion won

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Joo-ho Jeong = Tesla CEO Elon Musk exercised all of the stock options he received as a compensation package in 2018.

The valuation gain was $115.9 billion (about 176 trillion won), and Musk raised Tesla's voting rights to 20%.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on the 17th (local time) that this transaction, which took place four days after the Space

According to a disclosure by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Musk exercised stock options for about 300 million shares of Tesla stock on the 16th. The difference between the exercise price per share ($23.34) and the closing price on the day ($404.66) amounts to $381.

Electrek, a media outlet specializing in electric vehicles, reported that option exercise costs of about $7.1 billion (10.8 trillion won) were covered by returning some of the shares held to Tesla instead of cash.

The stocks Musk received by exercising stock options are restricted stocks that cannot be sold until January 2028. However, voting rights can be exercised immediately.

With this transaction, Musk's stake in Tesla increased from 15% (2025) to 19.9%. Musk has revealed that he needs to secure a 25% stake in Tesla for AI development.

Valuation gains come with a tax burden.

Since it is a non-qualified stock option, all profits are subject to general income tax, and federal taxes alone are estimated to amount to approximately $45 billion (KRW 68.6 trillion). Electrek reported that although there is no state tax because they live in Texas, if they were in California, they would have had to pay an additional approximately $15 billion (22.9 trillion won). However, since it is a restricted stock, the actual taxation date may be postponed until 2028, when stock disposal becomes possible.

This transaction was reached after a six-year legal battle.

A Delaware court ruled that the 2024 compensation package was invalid, but the Delaware Supreme Court overturned it in December 2025, and the deal was concluded when Tesla's board of directors signed an implementation agreement in April of this year.

This package is unrelated to the separate 2025 remuneration package (worth approximately $1 trillion) approved by shareholders in 2024.