Tesla board warns shareholders to approve Musk's $1 trillion pay deal or risk losing him

midian182

midian182

Posts: 11,726   +177
Staff member
A hot potato: How much would a company be willing to pay to keep its CEO? In the case of Tesla, board chairman Robyn Denholm believes shareholders should approve Elon Musk's $1 trillion pay package or risk losing the world's richest boss. And that would be very bad for Tesla, apparently.

Musk's proposed pay package, which consists of 12 tranches of shares, will award him up to $1 trillion contingent on meeting certain targets, including increasing the company's market cap from its current $1.36 trillion to $8.5 trillion by 2035 – that's around twice what the world's richest company, Nvidia, is worth today. Other goals include the delivery of 20 million Tesla vehicles, deploying 1 million robotaxis, and shipping 1 million Optimus robots.

Ahead of Tesla's annual meeting next week, Denholm has asked shareholders to vote in favor of the package. She warned that the automaker would risk becoming "just another car company" without Musk, and that he is key to its push into Full Self Driving and Optimus technologies.

Graphs and data by App Economy Insights

"Without Elon, Tesla could lose significant value, as our company may no longer be valued for what we aim to become," Denholm wrote.

"The fundamental question for shareholders at this year's Annual Meeting is simple: Do you want to retain Elon as Tesla's CEO and motivate him to drive Tesla to become the leading provider of autonomous solutions and the most valuable company in the world?"

Giving the richest person in the world another trillion dollars doesn't seem like a particularly good thing, but Musk said it was more about securing influence and controlling the direction of Tesla. If it is approved, his stake in the company will increase from its current 13% to around 29%.

Tesla's year-to-date share price has jumped recently

"It's called compensation, but it's not like I'm going to go spend the money," Musk added. "It's just, if we build this robot army, do I have at least a strong influence over that robot army, not current control, but a strong influence? That's what it comes down to in a nutshell. I don't feel comfortable wielding that robot army if I don't have at least a strong influence."

Musk added that if he does increase his percentage of shares in Tesla to the mid-20s, it will give him "a strong influence" but other shareholders will still be able to have him fired, should he go "insane."

After years of expansion, Tesla's market share is declining across all regions.

Musk has also claimed he needs to protect Tesla from ISS and Glass Lewis, two research firms that advise shareholders on voting issues. Both companies have advised against voting for Musk's new pay package, prompting him to call them "corporate terrorists."

It's not the first time that Musk has threatened Tesla in this way. In January 2024, he warned that unless his ownership in EV maker increased to 25%, he would be uncomfortable growing the firm to be a leader in AI and robotics. He added that without owning a quarter of Tesla, he would prefer to build products outside of the automaker.

Permalink to story:

Tesla board warns shareholders to approve Musk's $1 trillion pay deal or risk losing him

 
Risk losing him to who?
The a**hole almost tanked the company with his "presidential adventures".
But then if he leaves, nobody will ever know if he could design the "Cybertruck 2.0" to be even more ungainly, uglier, and more useless than the original.

But seriously, where can he possibly go? Then, simply walk into another company, while demanding a trillion dollar, (to start) salary, without being escorted out of the building by security..
 
  • Like
Reactions: AlmightyLoaf, TempleOrion, allis0 and 11 others
What firm would they lose Musk to? If he leaves Tesla his net worth would crater.

Also, this quote is nuts. Why should there be a blocker against dismissal if a leader goes "insane?"

'Musk added that if he does increase his percentage of shares in Tesla to the mid-20s, it will give him "a strong influence" but other shareholders will still be able to have him fired, should he go "insane."'
 
  • Like
Reactions: TempleOrion and Nanonymous
Kashim said:
Ignore that guy, he's part of the far right MAGA who think running a country means "owning the libs".
Click to expand...
We do have a couple of members here, who think they're
"educated".
The stark reality is, they confuse, "being educated", with, "being brainwashed".

In some specific cases, they couldn't have had a more thorough "orientation", if they'd have been sent to Gitmo and water boarded.

What you get in the end, is somebody else's views and opinions "living in their empty helmet", so to speak. No original thought is involved They just process bad information the same as a computer, "garbage in, garbage out".
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: TempleOrion, sdms96825, wiyosaya and 1 other person
captaincranky said:
Risk losing him to who?
The a**hole almost tanked the company with his "presidential adventures".
But then if he leaves, nobody will ever know if he could design the "Cybertruck 2.0" to be even more ungainly, uglier, and more useless than the original.

But seriously, where can he possibly go? Then, simply walk into another company, while demanding a trillion dollar, (to start) salary, without being escorted out of the building by security..
Click to expand...
EvilRebar said:
What firm would they lose Musk to? If he leaves Tesla his net worth would crater.

Also, this quote is nuts. Why should there be a blocker against dismissal if a leader goes "insane?"

'Musk added that if he does increase his percentage of shares in Tesla to the mid-20s, it will give him "a strong influence" but other shareholders will still be able to have him fired, should he go "insane."'
Click to expand...
His other highly successful companies? Let's not pretend his only job is CEO of Tesla. He's also a CEO of SpaceX and xAI, and involved in a number of other ventures. Maybe you just don't know that much about him, and that would explain the incredulity.
Haaky said:
Are you serious???
The damage he has cause to the American people, and your gonna support this GOOF?
Let me guess you must be a MAGA-et
Click to expand...
Just because his politics don't align with your own doesn't mean he's caused damage to the American people. Remember that his companies created far more jobs than were ever laid off via DOGE. 2/3 of those workers left voluntarily with a nice pay package. The government has continued to function since, so obviously those jobs weren't terribly important.

If the government continues to rack up tens of trillions of dollars of debt, until they default or have hyperinflation, it's going to be far more damaging to the American people. Massive portions of people's savings and retirement funds would be wiped out and that'll affect everyone (not just a couple hundred thousand of people who can get jobs elsewhere).

Meanwhile, Elon Musk's companies make money in foreign countries for Americans. SpaceX owns 90% of the launch market (and the US would be behind China if it were not for SpaceX). Plus, almost 2/3 of Tesla's sales is in foreign countries (other American companies happily outsource labor). While Tesla makes the most American cars (something Elon pushes for), the auto market trade deficit has more than doubled in the last 16 years in the US: https://www.trade.gov/data-visualization/new-vehicle-trade-data-visualization

If you want to look at what's highly damaging to the American people, you should look at the current Federal government shutdown.
 
  • Like
Reactions: PurpaFur, VBKing, JaredTheDragon and 3 others
Plutoisaplanet said:
His other highly successful companies? Let's not pretend his only job is CEO of Tesla. He's also a CEO of SpaceX and xAI, and involved in a number of other ventures. Maybe you just don't know that much about him, and that would explain the incredulity.
Click to expand...
>>> Well then gee whiz, he should just threaten to leave those other companies if they won't give him a trillion dollars each either <<<<.

Trust me, I do know plenty about him, his politics, and the a**holes that worship him.

FWIW: I was here for 19 years before I blocked my first and only member. Trust me, you're about to become my 2nd.
 
  • Like
Reactions: EvilRebar, TempleOrion, BogdanR and 1 other person
Ironically, most of the people commenting are not shareholders so they're not very knowledgeable about how Tesla actually runs. People who invest money in the company know that Tesla today would be a money losing venture without Elon Musk (who's focused on cutting manufacturing costs and unconventional cost savings like direct sales & vertical integration), meaning it would've been impossible to have ramp up millions of vehicle sales. They also probably don't know that the success of the company has been intertwined with similar CEO compensation plans for the past 15 years.

In order for Elon Musk to achieve anywhere close to that pay package, Tesla would have to massively grow. It is essentially dependent on Tesla winning in new, highly profitable, autonomous products. Furthermore, each tranche of the pay package is stock (so the first few are worth little in comparison). They're not guaranteed unless he stays with the company for 7.5-10 years after each milestone. Then he can't sell them for another 5 years. To be eligible the last two milestones, he also needs to develop a CEO succession plan as well. This goes into the actual details of the plan (almost all of them are missing from this article): https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/202...usks-2018-pay-plan-to-his-latest-tesla-award/

chart.png
 
  • Like
Reactions: PurpaFur
Sounds like the Board is in bed with fElon and at the very least, fElon is feeding them Kool-Aid that they, for some mysterious reason, cannot resist drinking.
Plutoisaplanet said:
Ironically, most of the people commenting are not shareholders so they're not very knowledgeable about how Tesla actually runs. People who invest money in the company know that Tesla today would be a money losing venture without Elon Musk (who's focused on cutting manufacturing costs and unconventional cost savings like direct sales & vertical integration), meaning it would've been impossible to have ramp up millions of vehicle sales. They also probably don't know that the success of the company has been intertwined with similar CEO compensation plans for the past 15 years.

In order for Elon Musk to achieve anywhere close to that pay package, Tesla would have to massively grow. It is essentially dependent on Tesla winning in new, highly profitable, autonomous products. Furthermore, each tranche of the pay package is stock (so the first few are worth little in comparison). They're not guaranteed unless he stays with the company for 7.5-10 years after each milestone. Then he can't sell them for another 5 years. To be eligible the last two milestones, he also needs to develop a CEO succession plan as well. This goes into the actual details of the plan (almost all of them are missing from this article): https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/202...usks-2018-pay-plan-to-his-latest-tesla-award/

chart.png
Click to expand...
:rolleyes: Yep. Another load of horse manure that ignores fElon's obvious faults.
 
  • Like
Reactions: captaincranky and TempleOrion
redgarl said:
If those stocks were to belong to the company just to provide voting power, I would agree.

However, this is literally a bonus package of 1T$ paid by the shareholders... to hell with that!
Click to expand...
I was just "informed" by someone that "Elon" has many other jobs. as CEO, in other companies.

Now people are trying to tell me that that windbag mutt is worth 1 trillion dollars a year , for doing a part time job.

IIRC: "Poor Elon" lost his compensation package suit in Delaware Federal Court. Now, he's trying to get to the stockholders via the "backdoor".

You do understand that "backdoor", is in this case, being used as a euphemism, don't you?

BTW, I think poor destitute "Elon", has a brother on the Tesla board.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TempleOrion and wiyosaya

Similar threads

Daniel Sims
SK Hynix just surpassed Samsung to become South Korea's most valuable company
Replies
5
Views
24
Rapob
R
midian182
Amazon sued in Australia after Prime subscribers were made to pay more to remove ads
Replies
13
Views
79
toooooot
T
Daniel Sims
As Sony exits physical media, Microsoft is testing a way to link your Xbox discs to digital licenses
Replies
8
Views
23
ni6hant
N

Latest posts

Back