Musk faces trial over $56 billion Tesla CEO pay
STORY: Elon Musk is headed to trial back in Delaware next week, not over his Twitter deal, but to defend his record $56 billion pay at Tesla against claims the electric car company unjustly enriches him without requiring his full-time presence.
A Tesla shareholder is seeking to rescind Musk's 2018 pay deal, claiming the board set easy performance targets and that Musk created the package to fund his dream of colonizing Mars.
Tesla has countered that - since the pay package was agreed upon - Musk has delivered an extraordinary 10-fold increase in value to shareholders.
The trial begins Nov. 14 and will be decided by Kathaleen McCormick on Delaware's Court of Chancery - the same judge who oversaw Twitter's lawsuit against Musk that ended last month when he agreed to pay $44-billion for the social media company, an acquisition which he financed largely with his Tesla stock.
But legal experts said the lawsuit by the Tesla shareholder is going to be much more difficult than Twitter's case against Musk.
The shareholder's lawyers portray Musk as a "part-time CEO" at Tesla, arguing the 2018 pay deal failed its stated purpose of focusing Musk on Tesla.
The company has argued the pay package was not about requiring Musk to punch a clock, but to hit "audacious" targets.
According to court papers, Tesla has hit 11 of 12 targets as the company's value has ballooned to more than $600 billion.
Meanwhile, the world's richest person, who appointed himself CEO of Twitter last week, is also CEO of SpaceX. Also has also either founded or co-founded three other companies: Neuralink, The Boring Co, and OpenAI.
