A court authorizes Tesla to pay Musk tens of billions of dollars

Washington.- A U.S. court authorized this Friday that Tesla pay Elon Musk tens of billions of dollars in stock options that the automaker initially granted him in 2018 as compensation for his work at the head of the company.

The options package on 303 million shares was initially valued at about $56 billion (about 47.812 billion euros), although as of today the figure could easily exceed $130 billion due to the increase in the value of Tesla’s securities in the last seven years.

The agreement allows Musk to buy Tesla shares at a price of $23.3 per share. The value of the company’s shares was around $481 this Friday. The payment of the package had been annulled in January 2024 by a judge from Delaware, Kathaleen McCormick, who determined that the compensation was excessive, the process to determine the amount was “defective” and that the board of directors had not provided all the necessary information to the shareholders.

Shareholder questioned Musk’s control

McCormick’s decision came after a Tesla shareholder, Richard Tornetta, filed a lawsuit alleging that Musk controlled the board of directors that granted him the largest financial compensation in the country’s corporate history. But this Friday, the Delaware Supreme Court overturned McCormick’s decision, ruling that the court did not give Tesla the opportunity to defend the compensation. In a message posted on the social network X, Musk thanked his followers for “the unwavering support” he has received. The compensation authorized this Friday by the US court is approximately one tenth of the new package that Tesla approved in November and that will allow Musk to earn 1 billion dollars. Like the 2018 package, Musk’s new compensation is based on stock options and is tied to the company achieving 12 goals over the next decade, from raising Tesla’s market valuation to $8.5 trillion, to producing millions of ‘robotaxis’ and humanoid robots, as well as multiplying the manufacturer’s production and profits.