It’s hard to think of a move that a corporation could make that should win the simultaneous applause of investors, Bernie Sanders and the ghost of neoconservative thinker Irving Kristol, whose “Two Cheers for Capitalism” was as aware of the limits of free enterprise as a modern right-winger can be.

But Tesla Motors Inc.’s TSLA, +4.42% compensation plan for CEO Elon Musk is a good one for the company’s shareholders and workers. The Musk That Roars stands to get $1.6 billion worth of stock options by 2022. But the plan so brilliantly balances Musk’s incentives to do well and do good that it’s Ben & Jerry’s Vermont-style corporate governance — with zeroes on top.

For every target related to the stock price, another demands bringing products to market that are better than any before them. Musk has to do both to get paid. It’s how the big-money game ought to work, but mostly doesn’t.

“ Elon Musk is now getting a $37,584 salary, which he doesn’t accept, and no cash bonus. ”

Musk gets 10% of his options every time Tesla adds (and sustains) $4 billion in new stock market value up to $43.2 billion, as long as the company also meets an operational goal that accompanies the milestone. Those include getting the Model X crossover through development and on to the market, then doing the same for the less expensive Model 3 sedan whose 2017 debut will make Tesla a mass-market producer.

There are milestones for selling 100,000, 200,000 and 300,000 cars. At the end of 2015, Tesla had sold about 107,000. When the program was put in place, the first Model S hadn’t yet been delivered. And Tesla has to have gross profit margins of 30% for four straight quarters.

So far, Tesla has met seven of the market-cap milestones and five of the operating milestones, the Tesla’s proxy says. Only half of Musk’s options have vested, since seeing the share price rise isn’t enough. The company thinks it can hit the 30% margin on the Model S by year-end, and its 400,000 Model 3 orders in hand will meet the sales targets. To reach $43.2 billion in market value, Tesla’s $250 stock must sustain a six-month moving average of $327.

In the meantime, the already wealthy executive gets a $37,584 salary, which he doesn’t accept, and no cash bonus.

This is very different than how executive pay is done at Ford Motor Co. F, -0.68% or Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. US:VRX. One’s an inexact proxy for grown-up Tesla; the other’s the current villain of financial engineering.

At Ford, they talk a good game on encouraging both operational excellence and shareholder return, but punt when the chips are down.

In 2015, top executives like CEO Mark Fields met operational targets, but the stock underperformed Ford’s peers. Ford paid 99% of incentive bonuses anyway, linking only long-term non-cash awards to shareholder returns. Fields got $18.6 million, all told.

At Valeant, the fallen Wall Street darling built on the deal stylings of ex-CEO Mike Pearson, practices are pretty much the smorgasbord menu one would expect.

On the plus side, Valeant requires top executives to buy stock with their own money to align their incentives with shareholders’, according to the company’s 2015 proxy. (This year’s isn’t out yet.) On the negative side, there’s so much. Valeant’s open about its criteria emphasizing bringing late-stage (usually acquired) products to market and assigning little weight to research or inventing things, a curious stance for a drugmaker.

Next, they consider executives’ pursuit of “high growth segments where the health-care professional is still the primary decision maker,” which is code for buying up drugs like Jublia, the nearly $9,000 toenail-fungus treatment that works 20% of the time. Not surprisingly, insurance companies resist paying for Jublia. The hijinks involving Philidor, the pharmacy Valeant gained control of (but didn’t exactly buy) in part to haggle with insurers, stem from Valeant’s strategy of pursuing high-profit-margin drugs even when they’re of modest clinical value, sellable mostly if insurers butt out. Questions about Philidor tanked the stock last year, sparking congressional investigations.

Third, Valeant’s criteria give heavy weight to dealmaking — or not, if stirring the deal pot throws off short-term cash. In 2014, executives got bonus credit for Valeant’s failed attempt to buy Allergan PLC US:AGN, after Valeant made $287 million speculating on Allergan shares.

Golly. How could an executive team paid this way make short-sighted choices that ended in disastrous scandal? Not to mention that paying for failure has a whiff of the Little League participation-trophy ethic libertarians nominally abjure.

Back at Tesla, Musk can make buckets o’ money, if he changes the world.

Consider what happens if the 44-year-old hits his targets. At 30% gross margins, Musk’s company will be two-and-a-half times as profitable as Ford’s auto operations, based on electric technology that will (to meet the goals) necessarily be a better mousetrap.

Plus, if Tesla does this, it’ll prove electric cars work, technically and commercially. That profoundly affects climate change and environmental policy everywhere, and has created 13,000 jobs.

It’s simple and fair enough that even Bernie Sanders might admit Musk deserves the money, if only after Musk also bumps up factory wages to a minimum $12 an hour. It’s how capitalism should be done.