just say no

Tesla shareholders ask investors to vote against Musk's compensation package

The shareholder group said in a letter to shareholders that ratification of Musk's pay package would do nothing to promote Tesla's long-term growth and stability. Photo via cdn.britannica.com

A group of Texas-based Tesla's shareholders is asking investors to vote against a compensation package worth more than $40 billion for CEO Elon Musk, saying that it's not in the electric vehicle maker's best interest.

Tesla is struggling with falling global sales, slowing electric vehicle demand, an aging model lineup and a stock price that has tumbled 30 percent this year.

The shareholder group, which includes New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, SOC Investment Group and Amalgamated Bank, said in a letter to shareholders that ratification of Musk's pay package would do nothing to promote Tesla's long-term growth and stability.

There's also concern that approval of the pay package will potentially lead to lawsuits arguing that it is corporate waste. And Musk is viewed as a part-time CEO at Tesla, with his time increasingly being spent on other business commitments, the letter said.

“Shareholders should not pretend that this award has any kind of incentivizing effect—it does not. What it does have is an excessiveness problem, which has been glaringly apparent from the start,” the group said.

They noted that if shareholders ratify the compensation package, it's possible that another plan will be put forth next year.

“Given Tesla’s history of exponentially larger awards, Musk may well ask for another award,” the group said.

The group is also asking investors to vote against the reelection of board members Kimbal Musk, Elon's brother, and James Murdoch, a former executive at media company Twenty-First Century Fox.

Last month Tesla asked shareholders to restore Musk's pay package, which was valued at $56 billion at the time, that was rejected by a Delaware judge this year. At the time, it also asked to shift the company’s corporate home to Texas.

The changes will be voted on by stockholders at a June 13 annual meeting.

In a letter to shareholders released in a regulatory filing last month, Chairperson Robyn Denholm said that Musk has delivered on the growth it was looking for at the automaker, with Tesla meeting all of the stock value and operational targets in the 2018 package that was approved by shareholders. Shares at the time were up 571 percent since the pay package began.

“Because the Delaware Court second-guessed your decision, Elon has not been paid for any of his work for Tesla for the past six years that has helped to generate significant growth and stockholder value,” Denholm wrote. “That strikes us — and the many stockholders from whom we already have heard — as fundamentally unfair, and inconsistent with the will of the stockholders who voted for it.”

Tesla posted record deliveries of more than 1.8 million electric vehicles worldwide in 2023, but the value of its shares has eroded quickly this year as EV sales soften.

The company said it delivered 386,810 vehicles from January through March, nearly 9 percent fewer than it sold in the same period last year. Future growth is in doubt and it may be a challenge to get shareholders to back a fat pay package in an environment where competition has increased worldwide.

Starting last year, Tesla has cut prices as much as $20,000 on some models. The price cuts caused used electric vehicle values to drop and clipped Tesla’s profit margins.

In April, Tesla said that it was letting about 10 percent of its workers go, about 14,000 people.

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A View From HETI

Greentown Labs and MassChallenge have formed a strategic partnership. Photo courtesy Greentown Labs.

Climatetech incubator Greentown Labs has formed a strategic partnership with global zero-equity accelerator MassChallenge.

The two organizations have headquarters in the Boston area, while Greentown Labs is also co-located in Houston. MassChallenge has a hub in Dallas, as well as others in Israel, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

The new partnership aims to strengthen the ecosystem for early-stage climatetech startups by providing more mentorship, support and a broader commercialization network for members, according to a news release.

Greentown Labs will share its expertise with the 23 startups in MassChallenge's first climate-specific accelerator, known as the MassChallenge Early Stage Climate program. Additionally, Greentown Labs members will benefit from MassChallenge's network of expert mentors, judges, entrepreneurs, partners, investors, philanthropists and others.

“There are so many synergies and shared values between MassChallenge and Greentown that launching a collaboration like this feels like a natural next step for our organizations as we strive to support as many early-stage climate founders as possible,” Georgina Campbell Flatter, Greentown Labs CEO, said in the news release. “We want to reduce the friction and barriers to market for these climate entrepreneurs and ultimately increase their opportunity for success—ecosystem collaboration is an essential part of solving these challenges together.”

Combined, Greentown and MassChallenge report that they have supported more than 4,500 founders and more than 1,000 climate startups. MassChallenge has awarded more than $18 million in equity-free grants to startups, which have gone on to raise over $15 billion, since it was founded in 2009. Greentown Labs has helped more than 575 startups raise more than $8.2 billion in funding since it launched in 2011.

Greentown recently added five startups to its Houston community and 14 other climatetech ventures to its Boston incubator. It also announced its third ACCEL cohort, which works to advance BIPOC-led startups in the climatetech space, earlier this year. Read more here.

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