In brief
- Tesla shareholders approved CEO Elon Musk’s 2018 pay package after a Delaware judge revoked it in January.
- At the annual meeting in Austin, Texas, shareholders voted on 12 propositions.
- Musk claimed shareholders were on track to support his compensation package and a resolution to shift Tesla’s incorporation to Texas, sending shares up 2.9% on Thursday.
Tesla shareholders approved CEO Elon Musk’s massive 2018 pay plan on Thursday, five months after a Delaware judge ordered the company to revoke it for board misuse.
The vote in support of the compensation plan at Tesla’s annual meeting in Austin, Texas, doesn’t override the court’s order, but it gives Musk a PR triumph and may help him convince a court to grant him performance options.
Musk took the stage after preliminary results were announced and screamed, “Hot d—!” I love you guys.”
Once worth $56 billion in Tesla stock, the compensation package. Delaware judges called the salary “unfathomable” in January. Judge Kathaleen McCormick ruled that Tesla’s board members lacked independence from Musk, failed to negotiate at arm’s length with the CEO, and failed to inform shareholders before voting on his remuneration proposal.
Musk’s X tweet that the idea will be approved lifted Tesla shares by 2.9% to $182.47 on Thursday. The stock is down 27% for the year as Tesla faces dwindling sales due to an ageing electric vehicle range and rising competition in China.
The annual meeting saw final votes on a dozen proxy proposals, including Musk’s attempt to transfer Tesla’s incorporation from Delaware, where most large publicly traded businesses are formed, to Texas, home to its largest facility. Shareholders approved the action.
At the latest shareholder meeting in May 2023, Musk predicted the economy would improve after 12 months, stated Tesla will deploy Cybertrucks in late 2023, and said Tesla would “try out a little advertising” and see how it goes.
New inflation and job data indicate progress. Tesla hosted a Cybertruck delivery event in late 2023 and has advertised on X, which Musk acquired for $44 billion in late 2022.
He still has plenty of time for other things. Musk runs SpaceX and NeuraLink. He also founded xAI last year, which has raised billions to construct huge language models and an AI chatbot named Grok that uses X data and data centre capacity.
At the meeting, Musk, calling himself “pathologically optimistic,” told Tesla shareholders that the company is making such great progress on “vehicle autonomy,” or systems to turn Tesla cars into self-driving vehicles, that they can “10x the value of the company.”
Musk promised that degree of autonomous technology in 2016, but hasn’t delivered. Competitors Pony.ai, Didi, and Waymo have robotaxis and offer commercial services.
Musk said Tesla wants to construct a ride-hailing network with self-driving Teslas, but he didn’t give a date.
He said, “There will be some cars that Tesla owns itself, but the fleet that our customers own will be like Airbnb.” Your car can be added or removed from the fleet.”
Musk said Cybertruck deliveries are rising after its late 2023 launch. He reported a weekly record of 1,300 shipments.
Musk predicted Tesla would produce “limited quantities” of Optimus in 2025 and test humanoid robots in its facilities the following year. He estimated Tesla will have “over 1,000, or a few thousand, Optimus robots working at Tesla” next year.
