NYC Comptroller and hedge funds urge Tesla shareholders to deny Musk $50B windfall

New York City's Comptroller and seven financial firms are recommending that Tesla shareholders give a thumbs-down to the electric car maker's ~$50 billion pay package for CEO Elon Musk. The suggestion was part of a letter signed by NYC Comptroller Brad Lander and the aforementioned firms, submitted to the Securities and …

[Anonymous Coward]

Get with the Washington Blob, Elon

Get with the Washington Blob, Elon and all your legal and financial woes will evaporate. Have weekly meetings with representatives from the Washington three-letter-agencies and start censuring unorthodox opinions. Also provide direct access to peoples DMs to the aforesaid Blob.

The Washington Blob: Its Blind Arrogance May Lead to War with Russia (May 2022)

[JoeCool]

funny

I imagine the author mashing his typewriter keys, spittle flying through the air, some of it hitting his own eyes and causing temporary blindness, leading to hitting the "?" and "!" keys together at the same time. Cause you can't take seriously anyone writing that intentionally.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: funny

I see Washington has its own right wing pejorative ‘blob’ in the same way the UK allegedly does. Stymying intellectual giants like Liz Truss.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: funny

> I see Washington has its own right wing pejorative ‘blob’ in the same way the UK allegedly does. Stymying intellectual giants like Liz Truss.

Why aren't you/all in Ukraine defending us from Putin /s

[anonymous boring coward]

Re: Get with the Washington Blob, Elon

What stupid nonsense you linked to.

[Mitoo Bobsworth]

Re: Get with the Washington Blob, Elon

"...engages in its weekly act of journalistic masturbation..."

Which pretty much sums up almost all shouty, hyperbolic political opinion pieces current being churned out by US news media.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Get with the Washington Blob, Elon

Ah, that particular species of troll which jumps into the forum early to post something utterly irrelevant to the article, in order to whet their own personal hatchet. It must be spring; the young trolls are emerging from the compost.

[Doctor Syntax]

Why not just go for a motion of no confidence in the entire board? Clear out and start again, assuming enough shareholders agree.

[Plest]

Probably because a huge swathe of Tesla shareholders are nothing more than Cult of Musk zealots who would willing throw themselves of cliffs if their messiah told them to!

[Michael Wojcik]

Perhaps, but how much stock do they hold? If enough is in the hands of institutional investors, it might not matter.

I have no idea how Tesla stock is distributed, though.

[Alf Garnett]

He earned it

Musk earned the windfall. The deal was that he got the money if he raised the company's stock price by the agreed upon amount, which he did. I hope Musk and the board tell the bureaucratic parasites in New York to fsck themselves. I for one get sick and damned tired of these socialists trying to stick their noses in where they're not wanted.

[perkele]

Re: He earned it

Many claim Mr "Pump and Dump" Musk and his loose mouth might be the problem and the blue-eyed people believe his bullshit. Whether it is true or not I don't know. I don't own Tesla stock or a single Tesla product, nor desire to. (unless any fund holds a minority stake or something lost on page 95 of the valuation report).

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: He earned it

The deal was that he got the money if he raised the company's stock price by the agreed upon amount, which he did.

I guess you've missed reading several of the articles that have already explained why that agreement was deemed void by a judge, then?

To summarise it for you:

Person A promises Person B a reward that comes from the coffers of Shareholder C; Person A is determined by a judge to be too close to Person B, and acting in the interests of Persons A and B, whilst they actually have a responsibility to act in the best interests of person C. The judge determines that person B can't have their reward, as promised, because the basis of that promise was flawed.

To provide a metaphorical parallel in the form of an example:

You ask me to look after your car for you. I promise my friend he can have your car if he buys me an ice cream. He buys me an ice cream. Does he get your car?

[IGotOut]

Re: He earned it

"I for one get sick and damned tired of these socialists"

Only in the USA would hedge fund investors and pension companies be called "socialists"

[hedgie]

Re: He earned it

It's not the only term they use that they have no understanding of, beyond something to call something they don't like.

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: He earned it

I'm willing to bet that he thinks neoliberal economics are left-wing too, because the word "liberal" is in there. It's not possible to educate such people, no matter how many times you point them in the right direction. See also: "Nazis were socialists" and belief in things written on buses.

[hedgie]

Re: He earned it

I guess one advantage of living near a University is that the local toilet stall graffiti is at least somewhat literate. Unfortunately, some people seem to think that ideas like "equality under the law" somehow equate to all views being equal, and giving equal time to flat-earthers as they do sane people. Asimov wrote about the culture of ignorance in the US decades ago, when I was still a mewling poo larva, and it has gotten worse since then.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: He earned it

And the Delaware Chancery Court. Clearly Alf is a bear of little brain.

[JoeCool]

Usefull to know

By your recogning the socialist parasites include

Amalgamated Bank,

AkademikerPension,

Nordea Asset Management,

SHARE,

SOC Investment Group,

UNISON

and United Church Funds.

Do you think the meant to out themselves ?

[Casca]

Re: Usefull to know

Hard core socialists the lot of them!

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: Usefull to know

Well, unless UNISON is a name shared by more than one organisation, there is actually one bunch in there, what with them being the UK's largest workplace trade union.

[ecofeco]

Re: He earned it

LOL! Nobody, no goddamn body on this planet deserves $50 BILLION.

Now leave us alone and go lick more boots. We're all tired of psychopath authoritarians

[Blackjack]

Re: He earned it

He lost more that that on Twitter alone.

[TheWeetabix]

Re: He earned it

And thats probably the quick of the matter. Xhitler lost his high score and needs it back.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: He earned it

If Musk is irritated by the owners of Tesla he shouldn't have sold the company to them. Furthermore, he is now expecting those owners to pay him 52 billion for his mismanagement of Tesla Inc. Moron Boy should be grateful that he hasn't been sacked as Tesla CEO yet.

[anonymous boring coward]

Re: He earned it

You didn't read and understand the article, did you?

[Plest]

Re: He earned it

Drinking a little too much of the Cult of Musk Kool-Aid there mate? Perhaps next time try reading the article, taking a moment to digest before leaping in to defend your messiah.

[Elongated Muskrat]

I prefer *Xitted out, *Xat out, or **Xcreted.

* The 'X' is pronounced as the ʃ phoneme, "sh".

** The X is pronounced as the name of the letter, "ex"

[Matthew "The Worst Writer on the Internet" Saroff]

I prefer to refer to the company as "Ecch", as an homage to Mad Magazine.

[Elongated Muskrat]

It's not really phonetically writeable in English, but the closest I can come is the sound of a short ear-shatteringly loud blast of white noise, which, incidentally, is what comes from a lot of his supporters.

[Michael Wojcik]

Seems a bit unfair to Mad to be associated in any way with X, though.

[ecofeco]

Xhitter

[DS999]

Its spelled "Xitter" (pronounced "shitter") and you "xit" (shit) or "xitted" (shitted)

[Adam Foxton]

He was told if he did something, he'd get a bonus.

He did the thing.

If there's any way he didn't do the thing, or did the thing in a way that was illegal, deny him it. Really go digging for things.

If there was a conflict, like he set the task and it was trivial (e.g. Musk himself set the terms as $50Bn if the stock price rises $0.000001 while no-one else was present), then investigate that.

But if he legitimately met the terms of the agreement, pay the man.

[mattaw2001]

As the agreement was illegal - a judge has ruled it was - so Tesla the company should not honor it.

Musk took Tesla public but doesn't seem to want to abide by the rules, he seems to be treating it as a private company owned by him.

In particular it seems like the Tesla board does nothing to stop Musk pillaging the company, e.g. this promised bonus many times greater than all of Tesla's profits to date. Tesla and Tesla shareholders are going to have to pay for that.

Even when he assigns Tesla engineers to work for another one of his companies, and allegedly transferring talent away from Tesla FSB, a real pain point with litigation beginning in earnest - this feels like straight up stealing from the Tesla company & shareholders?

In summary Musk just doesn't want to play by the rules that made him a billionaire, nothing new here then.

Lots of lots of questions here, most of which mean I don't think they should be comfortable with paying out many times Tesla's total profits to date.

[doublelayer]

"If there was a conflict, like he set the task and it was trivial (e.g. Musk himself set the terms as $50Bn if the stock price rises $0.000001 while no-one else was present), then investigate that."

That's exactly what they're saying. Or rather, that's almost exactly what they're saying which is that he had some friends set the terms and the award and it was trivial. They can fight that out, but the thing you say would be an exception is the thing they said happened.

[cyberdemon]

Not only that, but he was in a position to temporarily manipulate said stock-price by spreading ponzi-style hype, in order to get the bonus, while doing massive long-term damage to the company.

He now thinks he's "won", by cheating.. He doesn't deserve a penny

[MachDiamond]

"He was told if he did something, he'd get a bonus."

Elon was the one that wrote the compensation package and the BoD rubber stamped it. To get it past a shareholder vote, they didn't quite make a full disclosure about all the aspects of the deal (as determined by the judge). The surmise is the board knows who buttered their bread and there's at least a tacit promise of more bread with lots more butter.

My problem with the package is it doesn't appear to have any payment milestones that mean anything. All Elon has to do is play the clown and get the stock price up. There's no need to build value, increase the product line or anything else that contributes to the long term survival of the company. The pay offs are also way out of proportion. Elon wants more than 2x what the company has ever netted in stock and it's a figure that is a multiple of the entire payroll of the company (as reduced, certainly). It's one thing for a CEO to make many time more than the average salary of the employees, but very insulting when it's over twice what the entire payroll for everybody is. At the same time, he's demanding 25% voting control or he'll take company IP and form competing entities with it. That last part should require immediate dismissal and an investigation. It's already admitted he is recruiting people from Tesla to work at xAI.

[ThatOne]

X musks the spot

> such as SpaceX, regular X, and Neuralink

NeuralinX, surely?

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: X musks the spot

NeuraXink? Indicating the usefulness of the brain implants once the untethered nano-wires work themselves free, as they reportedly are doing.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: X musks the spot

Musk should buy Timex Group B.V., so he could be Master of SpaceX and Timex.

(I know, it's privately held, and the terms of the last transfer of ownership weren't disclosed. But let's pretend he could.)

[MachDiamond]

Re: X musks the spot

"(I know, it's privately held, and the terms of the last transfer of ownership weren't disclosed. But let's pretend he could"

Being private might make it easier. Elon, if he had any money left, could approach Timex and make an offer. That sort of thing happens everyday.

[Someone Else]

What is not said...

Lander and co cited a litany of reasons as to why Musk shouldn't get the billions of dollars.

Probably not on the list, but still close to front of mind, might be that Musk is an inveterate, flaming peckerhead who has done nothing to deserve it. But you can't say that in a financial filing, now can you?

[ecofeco]

Re: What is not said...

He is now a confirmed Nazi. How'd that work the last time Nazis had power and resources?

Yeah, we ended up with that ------------------------------------------------------------>>>>

[disgruntled yank]

Re: What is not said...

@ecofeco

Chapter and verse please, or I invoke Godwin's Law.

[Howard Sway]

Murdoch, apparently has been friends with the CEO for years, joining him on family vacations

I guess a family holiday's not really a holiday for the billionaire class unless you can bring along some other rich bastard to spend the evenings playing "Who's been the most appalling this year" with.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Murdoch, apparently has been friends with the CEO for years, joining him on family vacations

I’m sure James ‘I’m just the lowly CEO’ Murdoch never saw anything, never heard anything, don’t remember anything, didn’t do anything, don’t know what you are talking about, regarding Tesla in the same way as his pathetic appearance with his infamous father at the UK Levinson Inquiry into systemic Phone Hacking at News International - aka Tbe Sun and News of the World.

Just the sort of without scruples toadie Musk would need.

[DS999]

This is exactly the reason

Why corporate boards are supposed to be INDEPENDENT, and not have any personal ties to the corporation's management team. Unfortunately that's ignored most of the time, but usually the greed isn't so transparently over the top as Musk's.

[Andy The Hat]

Not sure what this story is about. A company wishes to pay fat cat CEO a huge sum. Its up for vote with the shareholders, some of which agree, some don't. This story is one side of the vote. Why not let it happen, see how the vote goes and report the result?

These stories used to hit several times every year in the UK, usually involving utility companies or banks along with pigs and troughs, but have moderated a bit recently ...

Welcome to extreme Capitalism ... which (apparently) the people voted for.

[JoeCool]

define the "people"

that apparently voted for that, because in the US of A that includes corporations.

[Michael Wojcik]

This story is one side of the vote.

No, this story is about one attempt to influence the vote, by an important group of shareholders. The vote hasn't happened yet, and so does not have "sides".

Why not let it happen, see how the vote goes and report the result?

The Register is not going to prevent the vote from happening, and no one else here is likely to do so either. (I do have a couple of doomsday devices in the garage, but I'm saving them for something really worthwhile.) And no doubt the result will be reported, so I'm not sure what the ever-lovin' fuck you're complaining about.

Perhaps you're unfamiliar with the concept of "news"?

[MachDiamond]

'A company wishes to pay fat cat CEO a huge sum.

The narrative is that fat cat CEO demands that the BoD approve his demands and they cave. This was not the board creating a package for Elon. The shareholders aren't told the whole story when asked to approve it. Judge McCormick made that pretty clear in her decision. It's also clear she found the plan obscene and disproportionate in terms of the money.