pay package is off-the-charts big, a crazy number that won’t be replicated at any other company. Nor should it be.
In January, a Delaware judge struck down the package, ruling Mr. Musk had unfairly controlled the company’s compensation process and Tesla’s disclosure of the pay package was inadequate. You can argue that Mr. Musk shouldn’t work for free, as many Canadian companies say when they give stock options to their founder/CEOs. I would argue – as many others would – that there’s no need to devise a pay package that gives the CEO with a huge stake another 12 per cent of the company. The company essentially divided the option grant into 12 chunks.
Well, Tesla hit the numbers, and Mr. Musk collected. This is where the Tesla fanboys say he “earned every penny.” We’ll set that aside, because Tesla shareholders are in a cult, with Mr. Musk their charismatic leader. This company’s stratospheric stock performance is testing the all-time bubble bounds, andInstead, I think the best takeaway here is that nearly all other companies aren’t asking for enough performance in their executives’ performance-based awards.