Sunday, June 16, 2024

Does Elon Musk deserve a $56 billion pay package?

Should Elon Musk get a $56 billion pay package? Should we even care? Many people have weighed in on this, from Tesla shareholders to a Delaware judge to regular guys on the street like me.

Tesla shareholders, which comprise thousands of Tesla/Musk fanboys as well as serious institutional investors, originally voted for this unprecedented and record-breaking ten-year pay package for the company's eccentric and divisive CEO back in 2018. This was partly because the company actually did hit enough of the various benchmarks and targets set back in 2018 (Tesla is not performing as well as hoped, particularly of late, but it has been doing some things right). But it was also partly in an attempt to keep the famously mercurial individual's attention on Tesla, and not on his various other pet projects, like social media, space exploration, AI, etc, and even to prevent him from possibly leaving the company.

The pay package went before a Delaware judge (also unprecedented), which ruled in January that Musk had unfairly controlled the company's compensation process, and that Tesla's disclosure of the pay package was inadequate. The judge took the extraordinary step of striking the down the package, calling it "unfathomable" and "deeply flawed".

Now, though, Tesla's shareholders have doubled down and reinstated the pay package, regardless of the legal ruling, although the award is now only worth about $45 billion sincere value of Tesla stocks have fallen substantially in recent months. The proposal is also now officially approved as a board resolution.  Moreover, the meeting voted to move Tesla's incorporation from Delaware to Texas on order to avoid more "woke" legal grief. 

It's not clear where things will go from here. Legal experts are unclear as to whether the shareholders approval will be enough to overturn the Delaware court's decision. As always, chaos and controversy follows Musk around everywhere he goes.

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