Recently, "Wall Street**" reported a "very expensive" gossip. On Tuesday, a Delaware judge vetoed Musk's $55.8 billion compensation package at Tesla after it was found that the chief executive had "extensive connections" to board members who approved his compensation agreement.
The judge claimed that Tesla's process for approving the compensation plan was "grossly flawed" because the board members of the compensation committee were "constrained" by CEO Elon Musk when negotiating on behalf of the company. This includes Todd Maron, a former general counsel who served as Musk's divorce lawyer; Antonio Gracias, who has been in a relationship with Musk for 20 years and even often vacations together; and Ira Ehrenpreis, chairman of the compensation committee, who has a 15-year friendship with Musk.
Judge Kathaleen St j.McCormick writes in his more than 200-plus pages of legal reasoning:
They (Musk's friends on the board) are not 'on the opposite side' of Musk, so this is cooperation, not negotiation on different sides. ”
The judge said the $55.8 billion salary was "unprecedented" and "ridiculously high," 250 times the median of the CEO peer and more than 33 times the second-place finisher.
Musk made a grumpy remark after his decision, hinting at the possibility of moving Tesla's registered place from Delaware to Texas. "Never register your company in Delaware," he wrote indignantly on Twitter, mobilizing a netizen vote — "Should Tesla change its state of registration to Texas (where the entity is headquartered)"?
As of Wednesday morning, about 87 percent of respondents answered "yes." So, he joined the 89 percent of Americans who were dissatisfied with their pay.
Musk's dissatisfaction with pay has inadvertently become the only thing he has resonated with the American masses in years. Some voices, such as the American tech blog Gizmodo, have seen Musk's actions this week as "a fair pay fight that billionaires can also participate in." The article humorously points out that Musk, like many Americans who live on a salary, has the right to get the salary he deserves - after all, the tech mogul has to figure out how much the next rocket will pay every week; Funding the next social ** platform; Or market the next invention of the AI era, such as the "brain-computer interface chip" that was just released this week.
The judge also acknowledged that Musk is not as profligate as a traditional billionaire or enjoys top-of-the-line luxury services and conveniences. As the richest man in the world for several years in a row, he has only one mansion. According to the testimony of Musk's lawyer, Musk once wanted to put the mansion on Airbnb, but Hillsborough cracked down on short-term rentals and did not allow him to achieve his wish.
In Musk's arguments, he needs so much salary entirely because he "endures humiliation" and has a lot of difficult but important tasks to do. For example, Maas testified about the "colonization of Mars" as part of his plan to "save humanity" and feared that AI would "rule the world" and that, in his words, "humanity could be reduced to 'similar to a domestic cat' or be completely wiped out by them [AI]".
The judge gave his opinion on the mission to "colonize Mars":
Colonizing Mars "is an expensive endeavor, and Musk believes he has a moral obligation to use his wealth to achieve it, and Musk sees the payment he receives from Tesla as a means to fund this mission." ”
Musk really seems to see Tesla as a "treasury" for other "more valuable" ventures. Just days before the judge's decision, Musk told analysts that he wanted to expand his stake in Tesla to avoid being ousted and maintain control of the company, which could further expand the company's research in the field of artificial intelligence.
As of Wednesday, Musk's estimated net worth was close to $200 billion, and losing the case could make Musk "the third richest man" in the world.