AKIPRESS.COM - Here’s what Tesla Inc. shareholders just bought for $2.6 billion: a stronger guarantee that Elon Musk will stick around for at least the next decade.

Investors on Wednesday approved what may be the largest compensation deal in history for its chief executive officer, pegged on ambitions to turn Tesla into one of the world’s largest companies as it ventures beyond solar panels and electric cars. If successful, the award could end up being worth more than $50 billion -- a sum so large it might just ensure that Musk’s array of other passions and esoteric side projects won’t steal too much time from his work at Tesla.

“I expect to remain CEO for the foreseeable future,” Musk said during last month’s earnings call with analysts. But he didn’t rule out handing over the CEO responsibilities if a suitable successor would appear, allowing him to focus on “design and engineering, which is what I like doing best.”

Musk is also the CEO of Mars-bound Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and has embarked on several other projects of late, including tunnel digger Boring Co. and a brain-computer interface startup called Neuralink. The new award -- which was approved at the firm’s special meeting in Fremont, California -- requires Musk remain at Tesla either as CEO or become executive chairman and chief product officer.

Tesla said in a filing about 73 percent of the votes cast in person or by proxy at the meeting were in favor of the award, excluding those owned directly or indirectly by Musk and his brother, Kimbal.