All’s well that ends well. Tesla shareholders have approved the maxi incentive plan from 56 billion dollars proposed for their CEO, Elon Musk. In making this decision, shareholders appear to have taken into account the possibility that Musk could walk away from the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer in the absence of the desired incentive plan.
The motion was therefore successful, in the context of aTesla Annual General Meeting (AGA). where shareholders were asked to vote on two crucial proposals: approving the company’s reincorporation in Texas and ratifying Elon Musk’s $56 billion incentive plan.
Both proposals would have been approved by wide margins: Elon Musk himself posted the screenshots on
For those who don’t know, Elon Musk has put his commitment to Tesla at stake as a bargaining chip to convince shareholders to approve his compensation plan, which should replace the one recently canceled by the Delaware Court for having been the product of false negotiations between a submissive board and an increasingly assertive CEO.
In the course of a veritable publicity campaign that culminated in recent weeks, Elon Musk has clearly expressed his desire for Tesla’s board of directors to structure his new compensation plan in such a way as to allow him a path towards 25% control of vote on the electric vehicle maker, threatening to “build products outside of Tesla” if the board doesn’t agree to his demands. A statement seen by many as real blackmail.
At that point, Tesla’s head of investor relations, Travis Axelrod, painted Elon Musk’s desire for greater voting control over Tesla as a broad altruistic measure, “motivated primarily by a desire to protect humanity from the potential implications negative consequences of imprudent or improper use of artificial intelligence technology”.
However, Elon Musk’s legal team had previously reassured the Delaware Court that the Tesla CEO would not use a change in the company’s incorporation status to try to overturn the court’s ruling, calling the possibility a ” pure speculation.” Musk’s legal team had also conceded that the Delaware court would retain jurisdiction over his ongoing pay dispute. Therefore, despite today’s vote, Musk will likely have to appeal the court ruling to get a full easing of restrictions.
