Lucid Motors has been steadily gaining traction in the United States market since the first deliveries in the fall of 2021. The brand currently offers one vehicle model, a large luxury sedan called the Air. The Silicon Valley-based automaker recently cut its prices to help make its entry more competitive. The Air currently starts at $82,400 and ranges up to $249,000 in hypercar-defeating Sapphire guise.
Lucid's CEO, Peter Rawlinson, has been at the helm of the startup since leaving his role as VP of engineering at Tesla. Rawlinson initially served as the firm's CTO in 2013 and became CEO in 2019. In early 2021 and under Rawlinson's lead, Lucid merged with Churchill Capital Corp IV (CCIV) to enter the NASDAQ as a SPAC.
In March 2021, Lucid's Board allowed Rawlinson to receive 13.8 million time-based stock units and 16 million performance-based ones that would vest over four years. The vesting period would commence towards the end of 2021, meaning that Rawlinson would begin to see them in his 2022 salary.
In a report conducted by Automotive News and Equilar, Rawlinson's total compensation amounted to a jaw-dropping $379,029,183 in 2022. This figure included a relatively measly base salary of $575,000 plus $5,504,378 in stock option gains and $372,928,375 in stock award gains. Another $21,430 was listed as other income.
For reference, GM's Mary Barra ended 2022 with a total compensation of $34,106,824. Moreover, the CEO of Ford, Jim Farley, secured a $18,340,695 total compensation. This led to criticism from Elon Musk who Tweeted, "Beware any company where leadership compensation is not linked to performance."
Despite Musk's comments, Rawlinson's stock options were actually based partly on performance and also time. However, these comments shouldn't detract from Lucid's CEO salary being astronomically high. He made a respective 11 and 21 times greater total compensation than Barra or Farley's. Nevertheless, Rawlinson is not new to large incomes. The CEO received a total compensation of $263 million in 2021.
