3w ago

Delaware judge strikes down Elon Musk's Tesla pay package for 2nd time

www.businessinsider.com Delaware judge strikes down Elon Musk's Tesla pay package for 2nd time

Tesla shareholders approved Elon Musk's pay package in June, after it was voided by a judge in January. But that wasn't enough, the court ruled.

Summary via ChatGPT

A Delaware judge invalidated Elon Musk's $56 billion Tesla pay package for a second time, citing undue influence and unfair terms set by Musk. Despite shareholder approval earlier this year, the court ruled the process failed to address governance concerns and transparency. The judge emphasized the board's failure to prove the compensation plan's fairness, suggesting alternative, reasonable payment options were possible. Tesla may appeal the decision or propose a new compensation plan.

85 comments

Fuck Musk.
- You might get a free horse out of it if you do.

Why does he get to keep appealing if it's already been struck down twice? Fuck this guy.
- Risk vs Reward.
  A relatively small cost towards legal fees has a decent chance to yield a large payoff.
  Musk is a warped gollum-man, but not an idiot by any means.
  
  The man is one of the greatest idiots of this generation. There's just a bunch of really dumb impressionable people falling for his lies. Doesn't make him smart.
  
  He's a sociopath with absolutely no moral compass. This may have made him a great CEO, but it doesn't mean he's smart.
- Different packages were struck down I think. The first he appealed and failed. So they approved another package this year and this is the result.
  Imagine what $51 billion would do for the average Tesla employee if it were split up evenly amongst all employees. But yes, give this one guy more money than he can ever use in infinite lifetimes.
  
  the 56b divvied up would be about 400k per employee (based on 2023 headcount from wiki). i think he's fired more than hired this year, so it'd be a bit more than that.
  
  We just need a general rule: no company may offer more in compensation to any person than one hundred times the value the company paid in compensation to its lowest paid worker.
  Add in words and details to make sure there aren't any loopholes, of course, and the problem will be largely solved across the board.

The replies on Twitter to Musk's legal team complaining about this decision are equal parts hilarious and day-ruining. People are really cheering for this man to get ~55 billion dollars. Like, it hurts their actual feelings that he's been denied such a payment, and they offer words of support to Musk like he's doing a life sentence and has been denied DNA testing that would prove his innocence by a capricious judge who built her political career on the initial murder trial.
I hope they're just bots. Bots expertly-programmed to annoy me specifically.
- I can tell you first hand some are def real people. When I bring it up to this one friend they start to foam at the mouth and go on rants like they can't control themselves.
  
  Almost like these people read Ayn Rand and jerked off.
- They get a cut probably.
- That's an oddly specific comparison

Yes the trillionaire will be punished with a 32 Billion pay package instead
- Oh no, how will he manage?
  
  It truly is such a burden for him, but justice prevails

That would be more than the entire market cap of Ford. Or VW, Honda, BMW, Hyundai, Stellantis, etc.
Truly preposterous.
- How much profit would Tesla have to make on each car they ever sold to finance his package?
  
  They actually do generate enough revenue in a year. Ignoring business expenses ofc. That would be the 15b figure below. Elon is quite literally asking for an amount that would be comparable to liquidating all of tesla, selling off every scrap.
- People look at the number and nothing else.
  Go back to when this pay package was crafted. The basic deal was, here's a King's ransom to do the impossible. Nobody ever thought that the performance targets required to trigger this payout were possible. Tesla achieved that. Elon and achieved that. And the stock continued to go up. Keep in mind, most of the money here is in stock not cash. So the 56 billion dollar number is only because the stock has continued to rise.
  I say pay the man.
  
  I'm glad your generation isn't getting laid, I'd hate for there to be more dumbasses that need to justify why a billionaire needs more billions.
  I say hang the man.
  on a ceiling fan for fun until there's a red streak across the wall in every direction, then make it a memorial to American workers.
  His kind eats entire generations of wealth. He's an enemy to you and everything prosperity stands for. If Trump wants to start ejecting immigrants, he can start with that one.
  
  man-child

i'll be tesla ceo for 0.1% (1/1000) of that. i couldn't possibly be worse than 1/1000th of an elon, or even 1/100th of one, so i'm the far better deal.
- There are millions of random internet users that could do a better job than him. And most if not all of them would be willing to work for 0.01% of that. The guy is successful in spite of himself at this point.
  
  line everybody up, take turns. ceo for five minutes then retire, collect $2.33 million paycheck, then the next guy is 'hired'.
- To be fair all you have to do is publicly announce that you're going to focus on improving build quality and not shitposting and you'd already be a better CEO.
  
  But then investors might realize they sell cars and not dreams.

That's a suspiciously close amount to the amount he borrowed to buy Twitter.
- :p

However, McCormick in her latest ruling, wrote: "Even if a stockholder vote could have a ratifying effect, it could not do so here."
What, so the package the stockholders voted on was the original package already deemed illegal in court? And apparently because that deal was illegal, it can't be voted through by stockholders?
Am I getting this right? Because that seems incredibly stupid by the lawyers advising Trump and Tesla!
- They wouldn't have done it without Elon's direction, easy bill-able hours for them.

May the next strike be with the guillotine 🙏

To put this pay into perspective, you could take it and give everyone in the US that is living in poverty around $1400. It wouldn't necessarily save them from poverty, but such an amount would undoubtedly help over a million people in a dire situation.
- How un-Amercan if you, thinking about this stuff. /s
  Anyway, I'm hungry, when do we eat?
- Ah but they’ll just use it to buy drugs, or alcohol, or shelter, or food, or transportation when Elon musk will use it to buy something useful like another politician.
  
  Or ketamine.

Some good news! I can't believe that Tesla shareholders approved this when all Tesla indicators essentially form a giant mount of downward facing red arrows at that time.
It's hard to believe that I was about to buy a Tesla just 8 years ago, and today I can not cringe when I see the brand. I hope someone does real market research on this, but the downfall of the company has been nothing short of fascinating.
- Tesla doesn't pay dividends so the shareholders (the majority of which are Elon sycophants) lose nothing from approving this bonus.
  It's a meme stock, nothing more

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