More CEOs Want Elon Musk–Style ‘Moonshot’ Pay Packages—Fortune

October 6, 2025

Elon Musk–style “moonshot” pay plans—tying massive rewards to ambitious, long-term goals—are back in the spotlight. But as boards weigh these high-risk, high-reward structures, many compensation experts are urging caution. Farient Advisors, often cited for its executive compensation expertise, emphasizes that such plans rarely align with shareholder interests and can introduce unnecessary volatility into pay programs.

Eric Hoffmann, Vice President and Chief Data Officer at Farient Advisors, told Fortune that while these awards are designed to drive performance, they often function more like “lottery tickets.” He noted that Farient has fielded growing inquiries from boards facing pressure to consider them—but the firm’s stance remains clear: moonshot awards are generally not in the best interests of organizations or their stakeholders.

“It should be difficult to get these awards,” Hoffmann said. “You have to create a lot of value in order to earn these kinds of awards.”

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About Eric Hoffmann

Eric Hoffmann headshot Farient

Chief Data Officer

Louisville, Kentucky
(626) 800-3120
eric.hoffmann@farient.com

Eric leads Farient’s data strategy, operational capabilities, partnerships, research, and client insights. With more than 20 years of human resource technology and data analytics experience, Eric’s work at Farient focuses on creating and delivering information and decision support to boards of directors, human resource professionals, and investors. Combining data analytics and visualization, Eric and his team create compelling narratives that lead to business insight and defensible decisions for his clients.

Eric has extensive experience in executive compensation and performance. From March 2005 to January 2011, he was the Technology Solutions Delivery Leader and a partner at Mercer. In support of Mercer’s compensation and benefits data and analytics business, Eric and his global, cross-disciplinary team delivered leading-edge SaaS-based client-facing and operationally driven data analytics solutions. Before that, Eric was a principal at Mercer, where he led a software development team. Eric holds a BS in computer science and mathematics from Purdue University and an MS in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

 

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