Elon Musk's $56B Tesla pay package is too much, judge rules
theguardian.comFrom nyt 2018 article on Tesla's package: (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/business/dealbook/tesla-e...)
"The company is planning to announce on Tuesday Mr. Musk’s new compensation plan, and it is perhaps the most radical in corporate history: Mr. Musk will be paid only if he reaches a series of jaw-dropping milestones based on the company’s market value and operations. Otherwise, he will be paid nothing.
Tesla has set a dozen targets, each $50 billion more than the next, starting at $100 billion, then $150 billion, then $200 billion and so on, all the way to a market value of $650 billion. In addition, the company has set a dozen revenue and adjusted profit goals. Mr. Musk would receive 1.68 million shares, or about 1 percent of the company, only after he reaches milestones for both.
But to put these numbers in perspective, Tesla is worth only about $59 billion today.
If Mr. Musk were somehow to increase the value of Tesla to $650 billion — a figure many experts would contend is laughably impossible and would make Tesla one of the five largest companies in the United States, based on current valuations — his stock award could be worth as much as $55 billion (assuming the company does not issue any more shares over the next decade, which is unrealistic). Even reaching several of the milestones would bring him billions."
" But Mr. Musk’s compensation plan is no illusion: He gets paid only if the company succeeds over the long term with significant gains in market cap. And it’s impossible for him to manipulate the system by trying to prop up the stock price for a temporary period. Under the terms of the arrangement, even once his shares vest, he has to hold them an additional five years before he is allowed to sell them. The way the arrangement is structured, each milestone is a blunt instrument: He either reaches it or gets nothing"
So apparently we can now promise the moon, not expecting someone to hit his targets and if he does hit his targets, go back on our agreements calling it unfair. I hope the Delaware SC, goes back on this stupid ruling.
From TFA:
"Tesla shareholder Richard Tornetta filed the lawsuit five years ago, ..."
So the shareholder condidered it unfair from the beginning, it just took this long to get a judge to agree.
"... accusing the company’s chief executive of improperly dictating negotiations around the compensation package and claimed that the board acted without independence."
If Musk is promising the moon to himself, that would indeed seem a bit unfair.
"Tornetta’s lawyers argued the Tesla board never told shareholders that the goals were easier to achieve than the company was acknowledging and that internal projections showed Musk was quickly going to qualify for large portions of the pay package."
Especially if he did expect to hit all the targets and just wanted to collect some easy money on the way.