OAK BROOK, Ill.—McDonald's Corporation disclosed in a regulatory filing Thursday that its board of directors has approved a $2 trillion performance-based stock award for CEO Chris Kempczinski, contingent upon the achievement of five operational milestones that the company acknowledged "read more like a fever dream than securities law."
The 5-tranche award, disclosed in a Form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, would vest in stages as Kempczinski meets conditions ranging from global consumer saturation to interplanetary real estate development. At full vesting, the package would represent approximately 2 percent of global GDP.
"This package aligns Mr. Kempczinski's interests with those of shareholders, the global population, and, ultimately, the Martian consumer," said Lloyd Dean, chair of the McDonald's compensation committee. "These goals are ambitious but achievable, provided certain geopolitical and thermodynamic barriers can be addressed."
Condition One requires that every human being on Earth consume at least one McDonald's product per calendar quarter, verified through biometric scanning technology that does not yet exist. The filing notes that infants and the "persistently vegetative" are not exempt, though the company is "exploring blended options" for the latter.
Condition Two mandates permanent McRib availability and that the company's soft-serve ice cream machines achieve 99.97 percent uptime. ("These conditions may be mutually exclusive.")
Condition Three stipulates that at least 400 currently serving McDonald's store managers must be simultaneously elected mayor in U.S. counties with populations exceeding 50,000. Write-in campaigns are acceptable. The filing specifies that the managers must continue their restaurant duties during their terms, "to ensure continuity of service."
Condition Four requires McDonald's to successfully lobby the U.S. Congress and the United Nations General Assembly to abolish Saturday, reducing the global calendar to a six-day cycle. The company has retained the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell to draft the necessary legislation, which would require a constitutional amendment in the United States and a revision of the ISO 8601 international calendar standard, probably.
Condition Five, the final tranche, requires McDonald's to open a fully operational drive-thru restaurant on Mars before SpaceX establishes its planned human colony, "so as not to compete with Mr. Musk's timeline." The filing specifies that the Martian location would be franchise-operated and would offer the full menu, including seasonal items, though delivery radius limitations "remain under review."
The disclosure comes one week after SpaceX revealed that CEO Elon Musk's compensation package includes a requirement to establish a permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million inhabitants, a condition that SpaceX's own filing admitted "reads more like science fiction than securities law."
Analysts said the McDonald's package represents an escalation in what one observer called "compensation brinkmanship" among large-cap CEOs.
"Musk had set the bar pretty high with the Mars colony thing, but Kempczinski just vault-cleaned it," said a compensation consultant with Meridian, speaking on condition of anonymity because the firm advises both companies. "A million people living on Mars is one thing. Getting the ice cream machine to work is another."
McDonald's shares rose 2.3 percent in after-hours trading. The company said it would provide additional details during its next earnings call, including projected capital expenditures for the Martian location and the estimated lobbying budget for the Saturday abolition initiative.
The filing also disclosed that Berkshire Hathaway is preparing a similar performance-based package for Chairman Warren Buffett, which would require him to personally outlive every current S&P 500 CEO and to bring the late Vice Chairman Charlie Munger "back, in some form." A Berkshire spokesperson declined to comment. Mr. Munger remained unavailable.
McDonald's said it expects the first tranche to vest by 2028, pending resolution of several outstanding class-action lawsuits filed by the International Date Line and the National Frozen Dairy Association.
—IRREVERENT Wire, General Desk
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