TeslaShareholders once again have a huge share package worth tens of billions of dollars for the company’s boss Elon Musk (52) agreed. The compensation plan, which was originally approved in 2018, was overturned by a US court in January.
The decision shows that Musk continues to enjoy the trust of the majority of Tesla shareholders – despite criticism of his sometimes erratic behavior, controversial political statements and focus on other companies such as the online platform X.
However, the new vote does not mean that Musk will automatically receive the share package. But it improves his chances of doing so in the legal dispute.
Musk’s cronyism with the board of directors
In the first vote in 2018, the share package was approved with a majority of 73 percent. But a shareholder sued against it – and on A judge in Delaware torpedoed the end the plan.
It concluded that Musk had close relationships with members of the Tesla board of directors with whom he negotiated the generous compensation. However, the shareholders were left in the dark about the involvement before the first vote. The judge explained her verdict by saying that they would not have had the opportunity to make a well-considered decision.
Through the process alone, the shareholders were now fully informed about it – and still confirmed the package. Tesla will soon be able to present this argument in court.
Shareholders also voted to move Tesla’s registered office from the US state of Delaware to Texas, the company announced at Thursday’s annual general meeting. Musk initiated the move after the judge’s ruling. He moved the headquarters from Palo Alto a few years ago Silicon Valley to Austin, Texas.
Over 300 million shares for Musk
The compensation plan granted Musk the right to gradually acquire a good 300 million Tesla shares at the 2018 price if the company meets ambitious goals over a period of up to ten years.
This meant that the stock market value rose from a good $50 billion at the time to $650 billion. Based on this target, the potential value of the package was put at around $56 billion.
After rapid growth and thanks to the electric car euphoria at the time, Tesla quickly reached this mark and was at times even worth more than a trillion dollars – and Musk’s compensation package was therefore around 100 billion dollars. The growth has now slowed and Tesla still brings around $580 billion to the stock market.
Next investor lawsuit at the general meeting
Musk announced a few months ago that he didn’t feel comfortable using applications artificial intelligence
and developing robots at Tesla without having enough control over the company with a voting share of around 25 percent. Some shareholders took this as a threat. And the general meeting was followed by another investor lawsuit in Delaware – with the accusation that Musk was weakening Tesla because he was diverting AI resources to his other companies.
Musk currently holds around 13 percent of the voting rights, with the 2018 package he would have around a fifth – and he has already indicated that he expects further stock options in the future.
$30 trillion market value?
After the vote, Musk was celebrated on the stage of the general meeting at the Tesla factory in Austin – and also took questions from shareholders. Most emphasized that they were big fans of the 52-year-old tech billionaire.
Musk made shareholders’ mouths water with promises of even bigger price jumps for the shares. He believes that Tesla will be worth ten times more in five years than it is today.
Better yet: “I think it is possible for Tesla to be worth ten times more than the most valuable company today.” After a short pause, there was an outcry of enthusiasm in the room. That would then be a market value of around 30 trillion dollars – Microsoft and Apple are just delivering themselves Head-to-head at 3.28 trillion.
Future with more robots than people
Musk did not give a time period for this incredible increase in value. In addition to cars – at some point there would be more than 100 million Teslas on the road – he sees the robot business as the key to this.
In the future, there will be more robots than people on Earth, Musk predicted. “Somewhere in the order of 10 billion, maybe 20 or 30.” Tesla will produce a large portion of that.
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Musk said that more than 1,000 of the in-house humanoid robots called Optimus could be working in Tesla factories as early as next year. Two Optimus robots are currently packing battery cells in the Tesla factory in Fremont, California.
In addition to the future visions, Musk also confided to Tesla shareholders that “in the last seven months or so” two people had appeared who wanted to kill him “and some other people.” That’s why he stopped giving autographs.