- In a video, Tesla’s board urged shareholders to vote in favor of CEO Elon Musk’s $47 billion compensation package.
- A Delaware court had vacated his 2018 CEO performance award.
- The automaker announced last month that it would hold another vote to reinstate the pay package.
Tesla’s board of directors has made another push for CEO Elon Musk to collect his $47 billion compensation package – this time on camera.
In a video Published Friday, Tesla Chairman Robyn Denholm urged the automaker’s shareholders to reapprove Musk’s 2018 CEO Performance Award after a Delaware judge overturned it in court.
Musk’s compensation was around $56 billion, but it now stands at around $47 billion due to Tesla’s stock price falling. But Elon Musk’s billions of dollars in extra pay was wasted after a Tesla shareholder filed a lawsuit, arguing the payment was excessive.
The shareholder vote to restore Musk’s salary, Denholm said, will be “incredibly important to the future of the company.”
“We do not believe that one judge’s opinion should override the will of millions of votes cast by all of the company’s owners,” the president told investors in the video. “So once again, we ask you to make your voice heard by voting for the ratification of the 2018 performance award.”
The president argued in the video that Musk had fairly received the price, which shareholders had set to incentivize the tech billionaire to achieve “ambitious financial and operational goals” since Tesla met its 2023 targets.
She noted that the automaker grew revenue from $11.8 billion to $96.8 billion and turned a $2.2 billion loss into a $15 billion profit under Musk’s leadership .
These steps, she said, increased Tesla’s value from $53.7 billion to more than $790 billion.
“His success is shared by all shareholders,” Denholm said of Elon Musk, adding that investors have seen the value of their shares increase by 1,100%.
Tesla Board Chair Robyn Denholm released a new video talking about the upcoming 2024 shareholder vote in June. “We ask for your voices to be heard and vote for these proposals.” pic.twitter.com/AmfRYo28ah
-Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) May 3, 2024
Last month, Tesla filed a proxy statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission announcing plans to hold another shareholder vote on Musk’s massive compensation package, which includes stock options.
Tesla executives argued that Musk was not properly paid for the work he did for Tesla over the past six years.
As of May 3, Musk was ranked as the second richest person in the world with a net worth of $195 billion, according to Forbes’ Billionaires Index.
The 2024 Tesla Annual Meeting of Shareholders is scheduled to take place on June 13, 2024, at 3:30 p.m. Central Time.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider before publication.
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