Tesla bull weighs in on Delaware Court decision against Musk's TSLA comp plan and use the link there warning it is 201 fascinating pages.
The bit about getting billions even if the company missed financial targets was pretty good. If the battery factory/space villain/social media charlatan thing doesn't work out for him he'd have a bright future designing pay packages for others.
maybe this judge has some kind of ax to grind against musk personally, due his political stands? It would be far from the first time such dynamics have gone on. People have way too much hysterical / anti / pro feelings about such things now days. The decision is confusing in that 73% of voters & the board agreed to musk's compensation package - & the payout was only because of Tesla's astronomical growth over the past ½ dozen years. Does the judge presume (s)he is so much smarter than all of them / they are much more ignorant than him/her? The judge has put their self in a precarious position. The board can resubmit the same compensation offer to musk ... & if/when it passes muster - again, - the judge will look like a total arss. Insult to injury - tesla can move incorporation off to another state. Musk isn't motivated so much by Massive wealth based on the size of his puny house in Texas (primary residence). Inside billionaire Elon Musk's tiny $50k home – best photos | HELLO! Especially when compared to some politicians who have theoretically way less income yet massive property wealth. Musk does have A San Francisco property that he's been trying to unload for some time (last i'd heard) that was primarily used for events before moving to Texas. Elon Musk's Last Silicon Valley Home—and Why It Hasn’t Sold Yet .
Oh come on, people always felt that way. The difference is you can read everyone else's thoughts on your phone now.
Elon is concerned about losing voting control, and that concerns me too. When it comes to Wall Street, company health is not always top of mind
As a stockholder, he's bugged me a couple times over the years. Especially when he tweets that “Tesla stock price is too high imo". I'm still wondering why this hasn't resulted in a shareholder lawsuit. He's definitely compensated way too much - imo. Elon Musk Says Tesla Stock Is ‘Too High’—and It Quickly Falls | WIRED
A long term stockholder, we voted to approve the compensation plan. The board put it together we voted for it. Bob Wilson
When a 13% shareholder of a publicly traded company is demanding to be given enough more shares to make him a 25% shareholder, court challenges are to be expected. If he wanted to keep that much control, he shouldn't have sold those shares previously.
& yet if someone hadn't stepped up to buy out one of the large social media companies we would never know what we know today.
I didn't, though I didn't really have that much to say about it. A couple years ago, I read "The CEO Pay Machine". () There's a lot of insight. Don't get me wrong. Musk has definitely done a lot that was right, betting the entire company more than once. While GM brought out the EV1, then killed it; while Toyoda took the technology right to the edge, then stopped; Musk not only put out an EV but filled the country with charging stations; innovated with new production technologies; and innovated with new battery technologies too.
But that isn’t what the case is here. It. Is about a former compensation program given to him years ago.
The lawsuit was filed the same year the package was proposed, so the "years ago" bit is only relevant in complaining about the very slow pace of handling civil lawsuits. It sounds like the judge determined that the compensation committee was not sufficiently independent of Musk. From an AP report: "McCormick determined, however, that because Musk was a controlling shareholder with a potential conflict of interest, the pay package must be subject to a more rigorous standard. “The process leading to the approval of Musk’s compensation plan was deeply flawed,” McCormick wrote in the colorfully written 200-page decision. “Musk had extensive ties with the persons tasked with negotiating on Tesla’s behalf.” McCormick specifically cited Musk’s long business and personal relationships with compensation committee chairman Ira Ehrenpreis and fellow committee member Antonio Gracias. She also noted that the working group working on the pay package included general counsel Todd Maron who was Musk’s former divorce attorney. “In fact, Maron was a primary go-between Musk and the committee, and it is unclear on whose side Maron viewed himself,” the judge wrote. “Yet many of the documents cited by the defendants as proof of a fair process were drafted by Maron.” McCormick concluded that the only suitable remedy was for Musk’s compensation package to be rescinded. “In the final analysis, Musk launched a self-driving process, recalibrating the speed and direction along the way as he saw fit,” she wrote. “The process arrived at an unfair price. And through this litigation, the plaintiff requests a recall.”"
Resolutions are simple: Stock holders vote on retroactively approve compensation plan. Second vote on doubling the compensation plan shares. (i.e., 2 * 13% ~= 26%) Bob Wilson
As one who read the 201 pages, my view is that it was both a wild stretch set of goals that were not outlandish (because there was no chance of them ever being achieved ... oops) but also, from a process standpoint, so flawed that no sane board would have approved it ... not that the Tesla board wasn't and isn't so inherently flawed by conflicts of interest they can never be viewed as independent.
