Billionaires
Tasers and Musk-Inspired Pay Package Make Axon CEO a Billionaire
- Rick Smith’s moon-shot awards boost net worth to $2.5 billion
- The company’s shares have climbed 159% so far this year
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Axon Enterprise Inc. modeled its CEO pay package after Elon Musk’s incentives at Tesla Inc. in a high-risk, high-reward gambit. Now Musk and Axon co-founder Rick Smith have another thing in common: They’re both billionaires.
The combination of Axon’s soaring stock price and Smith’s moon-shot pay package has lifted the chief executive officer’s fortune to about $2.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which is valuing his net worth for the first time.