Tesla shareholders will determine on Thursday the fate of a massive pay package meant to retain Elon Musk long enough to achieve technological breakthroughs he vows will change the world.
Musk — who has boasted that Tesla’s engineering prowess in artificial intelligence, autonomy and robotics will leave rival tech giants in the dust — stands to garner as much as $1 trillion in an unprecedented package tied to performance benchmarks.
Tesla Chair Robin Denholm has appeared on CNBC and other broadcasts in recent weeks to sell the plan in a sign of the board’s continued enthusiastic backing for Musk, despite criticism that the billionaire’s embrace of far-right political figures has weighed on sales.
“Without Elon, Tesla could lose significant value, as our company may no longer be valued for what we aim to become: a transformative force reimagining the fundamental building blocks of mobility, energy and labor,” Denholm said in an October 27 message to shareholders.
Musk himself has hinted he could leave Tesla or take a back seat if his ownership share is not raised enough to give him the influence over its future that he desires.
The package could lift Musk’s holding to more than 25 percent of Tesla shares from its current level of more than 12 percent.
“It’s not like I’m going to spend the money,” Musk said on a conference call in October. “It’s just if we build this robot army, (I want to) have at least a strong influence over that robot army.”
The outcome of the vote will be announced at the annual shareholder meeting at Tesla’s factory in Austin, Texas, on Thursday.
Anti-Musk protesters plan a demonstration outside the Tesla gigafactory that day, after an anti-Musk rally in downtown Austin on Wednesday.
“A trillion dollars is way too much any person should have under any circumstances,” activist Ethan McBride told AFP, calling the package a means of “enriching the man who is funding degradation of our democracy.”
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