Tesla asked its investors to vote again on chief executive Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package — a deal approved by shareholders in 2018, but which was voided by a Delaware court earlier this year.
In a proxy filing Wednesday, the electric-vehicle giant also said it will have shareholders vote on whether Tesla should move its state of incorporation from Delaware to business-friendly Texas, where the company is based.
Tesla stakeholders are expected to convene on the topics at its annual meeting on June 13, according to Bloomberg.
“Never incorporate your company in the state of Delaware,” Musk said in a Jan. 30 post on X after Judge Kathaleen McCormick of Delaware’s Court of Chancery swept away the tech titan’s “unfathomable” compensation — the largest in corporate America.
The judge added in her 201-page note accompanying the ruling that she found the multibillion-dollar payday to be negotiated by directors who seemed beholden to their headline-making CEO and the promise of allowing him to share in the company’s enormous growth.
McCormick also referred to Tesla’s directors as “supine servants of an overweening master” and said they hadn’t looked out for the best interests of investors, Bloomberg reported.
The ruling can be appealed to the Delaware Supreme Court.
Tesla Chair Robyn Denholm has criticized the Delaware Chancery Court’s decision, writing in the proxy that it amounted to a “judicial second guessing of fiduciary conduct.”
“Because the Delaware Court second-guessed your decision, Elon has not been paid for any of his work for Tesla for the past six years that has helped to generate significant growth and stockholder value,” Denholm added.
“That strikes us – and the many stockholders from whom we already have heard – as fundamentally unfair, and inconsistent with the will of the stockholders who voted for it.”
Representatives for Tesla did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
However, the shareholder who threw Musk’s pay package into question, Richard Tornetta, argued that the sum was excessive.
As it currently stands, Musk is the third-richest person in the world, with a $178 billion net worth — most of which is thanks to the 52-year-old’s Tesla shares, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
At the time Tornetta brought a lawsuit against Musk, he reportedly owned just nine shares of the automaker. It’s unclear if he’s sold his stock since, or if he’s scooped up more shares of the EV firm, which has seen its share price tumble more than 36% year to date.
Tesla has faced a number of woes in recent weeks, including mounting complaints about its Cybertruck, which is reportedly not being delivered until after April 20 over “an accelerator issue” that sees the electric truck’s pedal cover slipping forward, pushing the accelerator to the floor and making the Tesla reach top speeds.
Also this week, the Musk-run firm said it was slashing its global workforce of roughly 140,000 by more than 10%.
Musk — who also owns SpaceX and social media company X — called it a “difficult decision” for the company as it grapples with falling sales amid an intensifying price war for EVs.
In addition, just two weeks ago the company posted its first year-over-year drop in quarterly car deliveries since 2020.
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