In This Story
Would you say Elon Musk is doing a good job at Tesla right now? After all, he has led the car company up to annual sales of 1.81 million cars in 2023, but he has also been in charge during embarrassing recalls and widespread accusations of poor build quality. With that in mind, would you say he’s worth $56 billion?
Well, Tesla seems to think he is as it’s come out to defend his massive pay package, despite warnings from the Institutional Shareholder Services warning that it was excessive, according to reports from Reuters. The EV maker insists that its boss is of “tremendous value” to shareholders, as the site reports:
The compensation, set and approved in 2018 by shareholders, rewards based on Tesla’s market value and operational milestones.
But a Delaware judge voided it in January, and Tesla has since then sought to move its state of incorporation to Texas.
The company said in its Monday filing that shareholder recommendation by ISS is based on a “technical misunderstanding” and that the advisory firm recognized the company’s strong performance under Musk.
In an attempt to justify the pay package, Tesla has argued that issuing a new deal for Musk to head the company would actually cost shareholders much more than the current deal. In its latest filings, Tesla said that “a deal should be a deal,” and argued that as Musk had “delivered on his end of the bargain,” then it was time for the EV maker to deliver on its promises.
Musk’s end of the bargain, incidentally, involved getting the automaker’s market cap up to $100 billion and meeting a set of strict earnings targets. To his credit, he did hit the market cap goal back in 2020 and the company is now valued at more than $500 billion.
Read more: Elon Musk’s payday will be decided by Tesla investors. Here’s what to know
A version of this article originally appeared on Jalopnik’s The Morning Shift.