Judiciary US judge rejects Musk's billion-dollar salary package
A judge in the US state of Delaware has upheld Tesla CEO Elon Musk's rejection of a billion-dollar salary package at the electric car pioneer. Tesla has announced that it will appeal.
03.12.2024, 01:16
03.12.2024, 03:17
SDA
According to court documents, the judge ruled on Monday that the shareholders' vote in June did not overrule an earlier court decision against the share package worth 55.8 billion dollars.
Tesla stated in Musk's online service X that the company would appeal. "Shareholders should control corporate votes, not judges," Musk himself also stated.
In January, the judge ruled in favor of a Tesla shareholder and overturned the salary package: Musk and Tesla had not been able to show that the remuneration agreed in 2018 was "fair".
"Material misrepresentations"
According to the court document, the judge now found several flaws in the attempt to ratify the salary package through a shareholder vote. These included "material misrepresentations" in the documents provided to investors about the impact of their vote. The law firms had come up with some ideas, but their "unprecedented theories" were contrary to settled case law, the judge said.
A Tesla investor had taken Musk, Tesla and several members of the Tesla Board of Directors to court. The investor accuses the 52-year-old multi-billionaire of "unjust enrichment". The company boss was able to impose his conditions on the Tesla Board of Directors, which was not sufficiently independent.
