Musk defends $56 billion Tesla pay packet in court

November 18, 2022

Elon Musk has appeared in court to defend his $56 billion Tesla pay package against claims he dictated its terms to the company’s board.

Tesla shareholder Richard Tornetta has sued Musk and the board and hopes to prove the world’s wealthiest person used his dominance at the firm to obtain an outsized compensation package that did not require him to work at the electric car maker full-time.

Read Minerva's previous coverage of Elon Musk and Tesla:

https://www.old.manifest.co.uk/tesla-overcomes-activist-investors-at-agm/

Questioned by Tornetta's lawyer, Greg Varallo, the billionaire admitted he made some decisions without the approval of the company's directors but rejected claims his pay package goals were easy to achieve.

The new owner of Twitter told the Delaware Court of Chancery in Wilmington it had been a painful process for him to rescue Tesla from the brink of collapse in 2017 and restore it to explosive growth.

Varallo repeatedly sought to portray Tesla as a company under the grip of Musk and tried to show he bypassed its board on several occasions.

One cited example was that Musk said he made a unilateral call on ending Tesla's acceptance of Bitcoin cryptocurrency and acknowledged the board was not informed before he told analysts in October that Tesla's board was considering buying back up to $10 billion of stock.

But Musk's testimony during the five-day trial did not prove who developed his 2018 pay package or establish whether it was a product of his demands rather than negotiations with the board.

Musk has a history of combative testimony and has called lawyers "reprehensible", but he was relatively restrained in Wednesday's proceedings, though at times he expressed frustration with Tornetta's attorney.

At one point, Musk told the lawyer: “Your question is a complex question that is commonly used to mislead people."

Musk acknowledged that he was not a lawyer, but added: “When you're in enough lawsuits you pick up a few things."