As Elon Musk makes thousands of federal workers jobless, tycoon pushes for $56B Tesla pay deal Elon Musk is trying yet again to get his $56 billion Tesla pay package reinstated with a fresh appeal to the Delaware Supreme Court. In court documents filed yesterday, Musk's legal team argued Delaware Court of Chancery Judge Kathaleen McCormick made multiple legal errors when she voided his pay package - first in January …
But so well done !!!
Almost El Reg of old !!!
On topic, musk WILL win ... particularly as Trumpf will just have to 'push' for his 'friend' to get something out of their relationship !!!
The courts are already tilted in Trumpf's favour and if needed he will 'simply' get the Highest court to rule in musks favour.
Dictator rules are now in play ... the courts either play along or the laws will be changed from on high ... by pure coincidence, of course.
:)
Genuine question(s):
Not being a expert in USA Law and the divide between Federal & State:
Is the separation between Federal and State law absolute ?
I mean in real terms, does the Supreme Court have NO influence on State law ?
IF this is so then there is no chance of 'Influence' by Trumpf !!!
This would be a 'perfect' example of the divide of Federal & State within the US of A !!!
I am NOT sure if this is possible BUT someone might be able to state if this is actually true in real-life as I don't know 100% either way !!!
I do KNOW that 'intent' and 'reality' are often NOT the same !!!
:)
"It's doesn't look Federal to me so can't go any higher the Delaware own "local" supreme court."
It could if there were a question of a Constitutional violation, but that might be very hard to show and the SCOTUS would have to agree to hear the case and get it into their schedule which might start filling up with others things quite quickly now.
Trump's greasy enough, after all those KFC lunches and dinners.
Anyway, if you're going to the trouble of getting the e-acute correct you might as well get the whole phrase right. It's éminence grise
> (Massive long title, then bumf about CARES act and fraud, when suddenly)
> Sec. 4. Each day for the remainder of the first session of the 119th Congress shall not constitute a calendar day for purposes of section 202 of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622) with respect to a joint resolution terminating a national emergency declared by the President on February 1, 2025.
Is this one of those "riders" we hear about, where a motion claims it is talking about one thing (CARES act, whatever that is - do we care?) but then slips in something dramatic at the end, under everyone's noses? As the title of that resulotion says "; and for other purposes"
Yuck! Just typing that (Pres Cheese Puff, the Cheezy-Oh) makes my fingers all Orange ... and normally I'd lick'em off, but now it keeps bringing back nightmare memories of Elon's toes ... yuck! yuck! yuck!
Thank you so very much for that original_rwg ... yuck!
That's how evil Soros is, exploiting the slow witted libs to gang up on Elon for less than minimum wage.
Why, Elon himself pays his sharecropper $100M for an infomercial.
Suck on that Bernie Sanders! Who's really helping the hard working astroturfers of America get ahead, eh?
"And even then, I'll take it out into the desert where such shenanigans are allowed, rent a minigun, and sell people trigger time."
That might earn a pile of groats.
I would have it delivered to my driveway in front of my shop and take it to bits, which I will sell at premium prices at the end of each quarter when Tesla has all sorts of trouble shipping parts. If it's a earlier Model S, I'll keep the traction battery for my own projects. There's lots of good Panasonic cells in one of those and, credit where credit is due, the battery management systems are pretty darn good. A glued together Model 3 battery pack would go to the highest bidder willing to come get it.
well that will get you a nuclear weapons program, 3 ballistic missile subs, and a shedload of warheads, or if a surface fleet is more your style, 2 Ford class carriers complete with escorting battle group.
Or he could spend 156 million per day for a year.
Or for you min wagers out there aspiring to match muskrats pay by hard work and gumption, it would take you 3 million seven hundred thirty nine thousand three hundred and sixteen years(and a couple of months) to earn muskrats pay package.
So what are you waiting for... pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
/satire mode off
Tesla employed about 130,000 people with an average pay of $150,000. That makes 19.5B/year. Fire all employees 2.9 times each or fire the one man personally responsible for tanking sales?
The federal government is a bit bigger. Taking out a quarter of them would match Musk's pay. The effect of those firings is more complicated to assess. For example, killing USAID also takes out its budget - a healthy chunk of which used to go on buying food from US farms. Tax fraud investigators are very revenue positive...
Tax fraud investigators are very revenue positive..."
You'd think so, but often enough those investigations cost more than they can ever recover.
I learned that when I had a manufacturing company that it was prudent to use one of the bigger payroll firms to process my payroll. The tax boards stopped questioning them as it always turned out those companies knew more about tax law than the government employee investigators. The investigators aren't that bright or they'd have a job in the private sector unless they really like having a job where it was nearly impossible to be sacked, great benefits for the whole family and retirement stitched up a treat.
He doesn't because the deck is stacked to "reward" him for reaching certain goals. If those goals aren't met, then there is no reward. However, judge decided that principle/agent conflict in setting the goals, and particularly the reward, made it invalid.
Tesla stockprice is really a new kind of scam. The sad thing is how many individuals are keen to play along.
"with eight launches, none of which made it to orbit,"
Be fair, they haven't even tried to get to orbit and at this point, it would be difficult for them to get the license until they have better success setting fires in the Indian Ocean (Trump didn't rename that, did he?). The last two flights were suppose to dispense some Starlink satellite models which wound up as pretty lights in the sky before the Pez dispenser could be fired up. It must also be remember that they haven't launched anything with V3 of the Raptor engine. Even if they get a successful flight done, the counter starts all over with the new engine.
SpaceX is ramping up construction in Florida for the Starship. They aren't allowed to test or launch there until there's some confidence (NASA's) of no big badda boom. Pad 39/Kennedy Space Center is hallowed ground and no desecration will be tolerated.
Does the proximity of the tank farm at Boca Chica seem a bit close to anybody else? Every other launch site I've looked at has propellants staged much further away from the rocket and venting set up so there's no mixing when the breeze drives the fuel and oxidizer down wind.
"They can't fire her - she's a Delaware State judge.."
The Doggie department has tried to enforce their will on judges/courts, but in the US, that's a different branch of government (Judicial) than the branch the President is at the top of (Executive). The third branch of government is the Legislative. The Legislation branch creates laws, the Executive enforces them and the Judicial sits in the middle to make sure the rules are applied properly. Each branch has other responsibilities that are spelled out in the Constitution. The US Supreme courts interprets how the Constitution applies since times change. There's a separation of powers between the branches and a list of checks and balances to keep one branch from gong rogue. This is provided that one, such as the Legislative branch, gets off of their lazy butt and does something!
Tesla's total revenue last year was about $97 billion.
Tesla's total revenue for all years since 2018, when apparently this package was agreed, was about $310 billion. So Musk is asking for 18% of the company's entire revenue.
Note, revenue. Not "profit".
Given Tesla's recent performance, I look forward to the payout bankrupting the company.
It's shares, not real money.
He wants them so he can use them as loan collateral, that way he doesn't pay any taxes.
Though given that the Tesla upper management are all currently selling a large part of their shareholdings, one wonders whether any bank would take that risk.
"Note, revenue. Not "profit"."
Profit is around $34bn. Revenue and profit have been mostly flat for the last 5 quarters which is problematic for a "growth" company.
Given the stock Elon has already been awarded (grabbed) and sold, the whole "bonus" package(s) is several times the total profit of the company. I haven't had a squizz at Tesla's capital assets for a while now. Compared to the older car makers, they don't own that much.
that's what it's all about in today's world, it's all about me, when will i become a millionaire/billionaire/gazillionaire.... f*ck the rest it's about me me me...
WTF can anyone do with this much money apart from being the next lex luther, the Penguin, Rupert Thorne, maybe that's the plan, taking over the world!
Really Mr Heinz!
I suppose it's froggy for those foetid fat laden turds that stubbornly refuse to be flushed.
Dissenting I actually believe entirely called for.
I note from the AU media that at the Whitehouse Tesla Showroom gimmick,Trump purchased a Red Tesla S from Space Karen which Trump said he would pay for later with a cheque. Personally I would be wanting cash rather than his vulcanised promissory note.
Do you mean what he's actually achieved, or what he claims to have "achieved"?
Claiming to be close to peace with Russia/Ukraine, whilst the Russians bomb Ukraine more now than before Trump got involved.
Claiming to fix Israel/Palestine with a bit of ethnic cleansing, displacing millions of Palestinians so he can build some hotels.
Creating an international trade war, worsening relations with lots of countries, where everyone will lose.
"Musk has achieved more in the last three months than those thousands of bureaucrats have achieved in their entire careers."
Exactly what have his antics achieved? Or indeed in hindsight will ever have achieved?
Much easier to demolish than to build.
Unless you are a vandal you want to be certain before destroying something its replacement will be an improvement.
Thousands of people each doing small things that don't in themselves amount to very much over a working life can collectively en masse achieve great things. They need leaders like George Marshall not the prancing powder puffs that Americans have deluded themselves into believing are leaders.
"Turns out that breaking things is easier than building them, who knew."
It's also easy to screw things up badly when you start making changes without knowing anything about the thing you are messing with.
Remember when Elon fired the only guy that knew how to work the door entry system at the San Fran Twitter office? The guy agreed to come back. I wonder if he regrets that. Remember when Elon dismissed the DOE staff that look after the US's nuclear arsenal. How about Tesla's Supercharger department that was canned en masse?
Every CEO I've ever worked under has focused on corporate matters, with an eye on company performance, shareholder satisfaction, corporate social values, that sort of thing.
Not one of them ever had an approach which involved being off their head on Ketamine and running around a stage wielding a chainsaw, while his company and the country in general is being run into the ground. So, on that evidence, I would say that Musk is indeed pretty f***ing exceptional.
Leaving aside who we are talking about and the obscene amounts of money this struck me as quite an odd ruling.
The deal was the CEO gets performance awards if the company reaches certain milestones.
https://ir.tesla.com/press-release/tesla-announces-new-long-term-performance-award-elon-musk
Apparently Tesla did reach those milestones at that time. And based on the milestones reached for that year he gets paid a bonus. Now if investors think the CEO is a raving loon, despicable or whatever, the agreement was hit the milestones and get the money. If he didn't hit those milestones, which on the face of it look pretty binary, then he doesn't get the money.
I think most of us if we had a similar agreement whether it was for 56M, 56K or 56 cents would be saying, I did what was asked, I get the money. Leaving aside the personalities, politics or morality of these types of wealth distribution etc, what am I missing?
And before you go mad downvoting because how dare I say anything remotely sounding like I am defending Elon Musk, I refer you to my opening statement. Leave out the person company etc. Imagine that this ruling could set a precedent for any company to decide to not honor an employment contract bonus clause when they feel like it even if there is no ambiguity in whether or not you reached your milestones.
"The deal was the CEO gets performance awards if the company reaches certain milestones."
Elon wrote it and it got rubber stamped by a couple of board members that owed Elon a lot. The early milestones were a given at the time the first deal was struck, so free money there. The deal was based on stock prices and little else, so disconnected from the health and well-being of the company. It also didn't take into consideration that it would be worth more than the company has ever turned in profit.
How about a reasonable salary and the stock he already owns being an incentive for him to give the company his all? If that's not good enough to keep him focused on Tesla, perhaps somebody else qualified to run a large auto manufacturer would do better in the role.
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