Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk close to taking home $1.6 billion paycheck; Apple hires former Tesla VP Chris Porritt

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk is well on his way to scoring his 1.6 billion paycheck.Wikimedia Commons/Heisenberg Media

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk is bound to reach another financial milestone way ahead of schedule. Musk is already halfway his goals to access 5.27 million stock options, which he will be able to do by developing new products for Tesla and increase production.

Musk's contract with Tesla indicates that he gets 10 percent of the options each time Tesla meets both market and operational milestones. So far, he has marked off seven for the former and five for the latter, which are good enough for Musk to acquire 2.64 million options worth $589 million.

The Tesla Motors CEO has until 2022 to meet all those signposts and it looks like it won't take him six years to get the job done. For Musk to nab the remaining half, he needs to complete the Tesla Model 3 prototype, sell it and eventually push the company's cumulative production to 300,000.

Musk also needs to boost Tesla's market value from $32.98 billion to $43.2 billion. When Musk hits that mark, he'll be awarded the other half of the options worth $1.6 billion. Online publications say Musk will be receiving a mammoth of a paycheck sooner than later.

In related Tesla Motors news, Apple has tapped former Tesla Motors Vice President Chris Porritt as the latest member of its special projects team and, according to reports, the head of the "Project Titan" team aka the one developing the Apple Car.

Porritt will reportedly be taking the place of Steve Zadesky, who is allegedly putting down the project and is altogether leaving the Cupertino-based company for personal reasons.

According to Electrek, several senior Apple engineers such as Emery Sanford and product development engineering director Albert Golko are already reporting directly to Porritt, which hints that the former Tesla goldmine has assumed the post.

Porritt's rich experience and background will certainly be of great use down at Apple. He brings to the table 10 years of experience as Land Rover principal engineer.

He was Aston Martin chief engineer for almost two decades, where he paved way to the creation of the One-77 supercar among others, and of course Tesla Motors, where he played a part in the conception of the Model S, Model X and the new Model 3.