bullish on EVs

Elon Musk gets green light from shareholders to get back $44.9B Tesla pay package

The pay package is likely to remain tied up in the Delaware Chancery Court and Supreme Court for months as Tesla tries to overturn the Delaware judge's rejection. Photo via Getty Images

Tesla shareholders voted Thursday to restore CEO Elon Musk's record $44.9 billion pay package that was thrown out by a Delaware judge earlier this year, sending a strong vote of confidence in his leadership of the world's largest electric vehicle maker.

The favorable vote doesn’t necessarily mean that Musk will get the all-stock compensation anytime soon. The package is likely to remain tied up in the Delaware Chancery Court and Supreme Court for months as Tesla tries to overturn the Delaware judge's rejection.

Musk has raised doubts about his future with Tesla this year, writing on X, the social media platform he owns, that he wanted a 25% stake in the company in order to stop him from taking artificial intelligence development elsewhere. The higher stake is needed to control the use of AI, he has said.

Tesla also has struggled with falling sales and profit margins as demand for electric vehicles slows worldwide.

But at the company's annual meeting Thursday in Austin, Texas, Musk reassured shareholders that he will stick around, telling them he can't sell any stock in the compensation package for five years.

“It's not actually cash, and I can't cut and run, nor would I want to,” he said.

The company said late Thursday that shareholders had voted for Musk's compensation plan, which initially was approved by the board and stockholders six years ago.

Tesla last valued the package at $44.9 billion in an April regulatory filing. It was once as much as $56 billion but has declined in value in tandem with Tesla's stock, which has dropped about 25% so far this year.

Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick ruled in January in a shareholder’s lawsuit that Musk essentially controlled the Tesla board when it ratified the package in 2018, and that it failed to fully inform shareholders who approved it the same year.

Tesla has said it would appeal, but asked shareholders to reapprove the package at Thursday’s annual meeting.

A separate vote approved moving the company’s legal home to Texas to avoid the courts in Delaware, where Tesla is registered as a corporation.

“Its incredible," a jubilant Musk told the crowd gathered at Tesla's headquarters and large factory in Austin, Texas. “I think we’re not just opening a new chapter for Tesla, we’re starting a new book.”

Musk and Tesla didn’t win everything. Shareholders approved measures that trimmed board member terms from three years to one and cut the required vote on shareholder proposals to a simple majority.

Legal experts say the issue of Musk’s pay will still be decided in Delaware, largely because Musk’s lawyers have assured McCormick they won’t try to move the case to Texas.

But they differ on whether the new ratification of the pay package will make it easier for Tesla to get it approved.

Charles Elson, a retired professor and founder of the corporate governance center at the University of Delaware, said he doesn’t think the vote will influence McCormick, who issued a decision based on the law.

McCormick’s ruling essentially made the 2018 compensation package a gift to Musk, Elson said, and that would need unanimous shareholder approval, an impossible threshold. The vote, he said, is interesting from a public perception standpoint, but “in my view it does not affect the ruling.”

John Lawrence, a Dallas-based lawyer with Baker Botts who defends corporations against shareholder lawsuits, agreed the vote doesn’t end the legal dispute and automatically give Musk the stock options. But he says it gives Tesla a strong argument to get the ruling overturned.

He expects Musk and Tesla to argue that shareholders were fully informed before the latest votes, so McCormick should reverse her decision. But the plaintiff in the lawsuit will argue that the vote has no impact and isn’t legally binding, Lawrence said.

The vote, he said, was done under Delaware law and should be considered by the judge.

“This shareholder vote is a strong signal that you now have an absolutely well-informed body of shareholders,” he said. “The judge in Delaware still could decide that this doesn’t change a thing about her prior ruling and doesn’t require her to make any different ruling going forward. But I think it definitely gives Tesla and Musk strong ammunition to try to get her to revisit this.”

If the ruling stands, then Musk likely will appeal to the Delaware Supreme Court, Lawrence said.

Multiple institutional investors have come out against Musk’s sizeable payout, some citing the company’s recent struggles. But analysts said votes by individual shareholders likely put Musk’s pay over the top.

Early Friday, Tesla disclosed that shareholders voted for Musk's pay package by 1,760,780,650 to 528,908,419, with about 77% of all votes in favor. The company's shares jumped 3% by the time the markets closed Thursday and were up 1.2% in premarket trading early Friday.

After the votes were announced, Musk began telling shareholders about new developments in the company's “Full Self-Driving” system. He has staked the company's future on development of autonomous vehicles, robots and artificial intelligence.

“Full Self-Driving” keeps improving with new versions, and its safety per mile is better than human drivers, Musk said.

"This is actually going to work. This is going to happen. Mark my words, this is just a matter of time,” he said.

Despite its name, “Full Self-Driving” can’t drive itself, and the company says human drivers must be ready to intervene at all times. Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” hardware went on sale late in 2015, and Musk has used the name ever since as the company gathered data to teach its computers how to drive.

In 2019, Musk promised a fleet of autonomous robotaxis by 2020, and he said in early 2022 that the cars would be autonomous that year. In April of last year, Musk said the system should be ready in 2023.

Since 2021, Tesla has been beta-testing “Full Self-Driving” using volunteer owners. U.S. safety regulators last year made Tesla recall the software after finding that the system misbehaved around intersections and could violate traffic laws.

Musk also said the company is making huge progress on its Optimus humanoid robot. Currently it has two working at its factory in Fremont, California, that take battery cells off a production line and put them in shipping containers, he said.

Despite laying off the team working on Tesla’s Supercharger electric vehicle charging network, Musk said he thinks the company will deploy more chargers this year “that are actually working” than the rest of the industry. In the second half of the year, he expects to spend $500 million on Superchargers, Musk said.

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A View From HETI

Chevron ranks among America's best places to work. Photo courtesy of Chevron

Nearly a dozen public and private Houston-based companies have been hailed among the best places to work in 2025 by U.S. News and World Report, with four from the energy sector.

The annual "U.S. News Best Companies to Work For" report examines thousands of publicly-traded companies around the world to determine the best employers based on six metrics including work-life balance and flexibility; quality of pay and benefits; job and company stability; career opportunities and professional development; and more. The companies were not ranked, but included based on reader surveys and publicly available data about each workplace.

New for the 2025-2026 ratings,U.S. News expanded its methodology to include privately owned companies and companies with internship opportunities for recent graduates and new, current, and prospective students. Companies were also grouped into job-specific and industry-specific lists, and the publication also added a new list highlighting "employers that are particularly friendly to employees who are also caregivers in their personal lives."

U.S. News included seven publicly-traded companies and four privately owned companies in Houston on the lists.

Houston-based energy companies on the list

It may not come as a surprise that oil and gas corporation Chevron landed at the top of the list of top public employers in the Energy Capital of the World. The energy giant currently employs more than 45,000 people, earns $193.47 billion in annual revenue, and has a market cap of $238.74 billion. The company earned high ratings by U.S. News for its job stability, "belongingness," and quality of pay.

Chevron also appeared in U.S. News'industry-specific "Best in Energy and Resources" list, the "Best Companies in the South" list, and the "Best for Internships" list.

Chevron is joined by three other Houston energy leaders:

  • Calpine – Best in Energy and Resources; Best Companies (overall)
  • ConocoPhillips – Best in Energy and Resources; Best Companies (overall); Best in Caregiving; Best Companies in the South
  • Occidental – Best in Energy and Resources; Best Companies (overall); Best Companies in the South

Other top companies to work for in Houston are:

  • American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) — Best in Engineering and Construction; Best Companies (overall)
  • Hines – Best in Real Estate and Facilities Management; Best Companies (overall)
  • Insperity, Kingwood – Best in Healthcare and Research; Best Companies (overall); Best in Caregiving; Best Companies in the South
  • KBR – Best in Engineering and Construction; Best Companies (overall); Best Companies in the South
  • Men's Warehouse – Best in Consumer Products; Best Companies (overall)
  • PROS – Best in Information Technology; Best Companies (overall); Best Companies in the South
  • Skyward Specialty Insurance – Best in Finance and Insurance; Best Companies (overall); Best Companies in the South
"'Best' is a subjective term relative to career satisfaction, and many aspects factor into someone’s decision to apply for a job with any given company," U.S. News said. "But some universally desired factors can contribute to a good workplace, such as quality pay, good work-life balance, and opportunities for professional development and advancement

In all, 30 employers headquartered in the Lone Star State made it onto U.S. News' 2025-2026 "Best Places to Work For" lists. Houston and the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area tied for the most employers make the list, at 11 companies each. Diamondback Energy in Midland was the only company from West Texas to make it on the list for the second year in a row.

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A version of this article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

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