Tesla shareholders are voting to approve a $56 billion US pay package for Elon Musk and to move the electric vehicle maker's legal home to Texas, the CEO said on social media on Wednesday, adding that passage was by wide margins.Tesla CEO Elon Musk is shown at the company's gigafactory in Gruenheide near Berlin in March. Musk has threatened to take artificial intelligence research to another firm, or even leave Tesla, in the long-running compensation battle.
"Even if the shareholders do approve the old package, it is not clear that the Delaware court will allow that vote to be effective," said Adam Badawi, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Texas Governor Greg Abbott congratulated Musk after his post, saying on X: "Welcome to a state that has neither a personal nor a corporate income tax."
Drivers charge their Teslas in Santa Ana, Calif. After reporting dismal first-quarter sales, Tesla announced layoffs to its workforce. Tesla has been drumming up support for Musk's pay package, especially from retail investors, who make up an unusually high percentage of its ownership base but who often do not vote.
The pay package is also needed to keep Musk devoted to Tesla, the board said, even though the Delaware judge said the 2018 pay plan failed to make sure that Musk committed a substantial amount of time to Tesla.