"o meetings are like snooze fests," declared Elon Musk, Tesla's bumptious boss, as he took to the stage on November 6th. "Ours are bangers." Napping while Mr Musk danced along to a funk soundtrack with one of the company's Optimus androids would indeed have been difficult.
Mr Musk had good cause to allow himself a little jig. The carmaker he runs had just announced that over 75% of shareholders had voted in favour of a resolution granting him a pay package of unprecedented size. If Mr Musk hits various targets within a ten-year period -- including boosting Tesla's market value to $8.5trn, up from $1.4trn today, and making good on his promises to create fleets of robotaxis and armies of humanoid robots -- he stands to pocket around $1trn-worth of the company's shares. The deal illustrates the extent to which Mr Musk has the company wrapped around his finger.
Mr Musk and Tesla's pliant board had mounted an energetic campaign to persuade shareholders that increasing the boss's stake from 15% to more than 25% is vital to keep him focused on running the company. According to Mr Musk, whether or not he controls Tesla "could affect the future of civilisation". The world's richest man, who also runs a space business, an AI lab and various other ventures on the side, said that he might leave his job at the carmaker if he didn't get what he wanted.
Yet Mr Musk's victory was never really in doubt. Around 35% of Tesla's shares are held by retail investors, most of whom regard Tesla's boss as a technological messiah who can do no wrong, and some 15% are held by Mr Musk, who is of the same opinion. The corporate-governance rules of Texas -- Tesla's legal home since the carmaker stormed out of Delaware last year after a pesky judge voided an earlier pay deal -- allowed him to vote for his own pay rise.
Not everyone shared the delight of the audience gathered at Tesla's headquarters in Austin. Some institutional investors, including Norway's sovereign-wealth fund, opposed the pay package. It is likely that other big investment companies with sizeable stakes also voted against it. Proxy advisers had opposed the deal as well; one of them, ISS, not only criticised the size of the package but also its design, noting that, because the award would be dished out in several stages, "billions can be earned for just partial goal achievement". Mr Musk responded by calling the proxy advisers "corporate terrorists".
Mr Musk certainly does need to focus. Tesla's bumper sales growth has stalled and profits are falling. The firm has an ageing line-up of only a handful of models. Competition, especially from Chinese carmakers, has intensified. The success of his robotaxi business, which relies on Tesla's autonomous-driving technology, is far from certain, while humanoid robots, to which Mr Musk ascribes 80% of Tesla's future value, look like a giant gamble. Yet even before the new pay deal, Mr Musk stood to gain enormous wealth by bringing his vision for Tesla to fruition. Some may wonder whether a $1trn sweetener was necessary. ■
