This is some bad reporting, IMO.

Here’s the quote

“ “I’m going to give them probably half of that on top of [their base pay] as tokens ... because every engineer that has access to tokens will be more productive.” “

It’s less of him saying it’s a bonus or a perk and more him saying expect to spend that much more on top of base salary to get enormous productivity boosts.

Now, I could see availability of these tools as an incentive to joining a place, which is no different than joining an engineering team because the use nice MacBooks.