24/7 Insights:
- Shareholders will soon vote on Elon Musk’s compensation package.
- Investors may judge what Musk is worth based on the price of their shares.
Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) investors will soon vote on CEO Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package. The package is complex because it relies on factors such as shareholder growth and the financial growth of the electric vehicle (EV) and energy company. The answer has two parts: whether the board can give him the package and when shareholders bought the stock.
A judge struck down an earlier pay package and said, among other things, that Musk was too close to board members. At that point, the package had a maximum value of $55.8 billion.
One of a public company board’s most important functions is at stake: it can almost without question set CEO pay. On some occasions, CEO pay packages are attacked by shareholders who want an individual “say on pay” vote. However, shareholders rarely reverse board decisions. The board has decided Musk’s package is fair and reasonable. So, based on the board decision metric, it is.
From a shareholder perspective, the pay package was put in place in 2018, when Tesla’s stock price was $20. It reached $381 in late 2021. It trades at $175 today. Investors who bought in 2018 and held, either to $381, or even $175, might think Musk has done a remarkable job. Those who bought at $381 may be very unhappy today.
Ultimately, public company boards are so powerful that the Tesla board can put Musk’s compensation on the current proxy where they think it should be. For shareholders, the “fairness” may be based on where they bought their shares.
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