{"id":150854,"date":"2025-10-29T04:55:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T04:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/150854\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T04:55:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T04:55:10","slug":"tesla-chairwoman-warns-musk-could-quit-if-shareholders-reject-1tn-pay-deal-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/150854\/","title":{"rendered":"Tesla chairwoman warns Musk could quit if shareholders reject $1tn pay deal \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tesla <\/a>chairwoman Robyn Denholm has stepped up her campaign to win shareholder support for Elon Musk<\/a>\u2019s $1 trillion (\u20ac859 billion) pay package<\/a>, warning there is no \u201cElon mark 2\u201d if the carmaker\u2019s board is forced to try to replace the chief executive.<\/p>\n

Ms Denholm and other Tesla board members are meeting this week with the company\u2019s largest institutional investors, which include Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street, to lobby for the plan in advance of a vote on November 6th.<\/p>\n

Mr Musk has threatened to walk out if shareholders vote down a new package of stock options that could be worth up to $1 trillion over the next decade.<\/p>\n

Ms Denholm confirmed that Mr Musk\u2019s public threats had also been communicated privately to the board, but refused to explain Tesla\u2019s contingency plan if shareholders reject the pay deal. Ms Denholm has also written to shareholders warning of his potential departure if his package is not approved.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a vote for shareholders on the future of Tesla,\u201d Ms Denholm told the Financial Times. \u201cThere\u2019s just not anybody, either inside or outside the organisation, that is Elon today,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Mr Musk\u2019s pay has been the centre of years of controversy and legal wrangling. Last year, shareholders voted in favour of a previous $56 billion pay deal. That package was originally awarded in 2018 but subsequently blocked by a Delaware court, which said the process lacked proper board oversight.<\/p>\n

The new proposal is expected to face significant opposition after advisory groups Glass Lewis and ISS recommended that shareholders reject the proposals.<\/p>\n

A group of big pension funds separately issued an open letter opposing the pay plan, claiming the board\u2019s \u201crelentless pursuit\u201d of retaining its chief executive had damaged Tesla\u2019s reputation and led to excessive compensation. On Monday, the head of the New York pension fund called the pay proposal \u201cinflated and poorly designed\u201d and urged investors to vote against it.<\/p>\n

Mr Musk responded to the criticism on X, the social media site he owns, last week: \u201cTesla is worth more than all other automotive companies combined. Which of those CEOs would you like to run Tesla? It won\u2019t be me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fortune of the world\u2019s richest man is largely tied up in the value of Tesla\u2019s shares, which have more than tripled in value over the past five years as the carmaker\u2019s market capitalisation soared to $1.4 trillion.<\/p>\n

Asked what the board will do if Tesla loses the vote and cannot retain Mr Musk, Ms Denholm said: \u201cI don\u2019t want to foreshadow anything on that front at this moment, but clearly, as a board, we have discussed what happens and we know that it wouldn\u2019t be a good outcome for shareholders.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t have Elon at the helm, or he isn\u2019t as motivated or incentivised to actually create that future, then it\u2019s actually a negative for all shareholders.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added that she did not believe Mr Musk would do anything \u201csudden and detrimental\u201d if Tesla loses the vote.<\/p>\n

Mr Musk has used large quantities of his Tesla shares as security to borrow billions of dollars to fund his other ventures, such as his acquisition of Twitter, now X, in 2022 and the development of his artificial intelligence start-up, xAI. He currently owns a 15 per cent stake in Tesla and is able to vote his shares in favour of the compensation plan.<\/p>\n

Tesla has warned investors that Mr Musk\u2019s leadership is crucial to a strategic pivot into AI, including through autonomous driving and its plans to build millions of humanoid \u201cOptimus\u201d robots.<\/p>\n

Mr Musk has argued he needs to control at least a quarter of Tesla\u2019s voting rights to stop its AI products falling into the wrong hands, using the example of him being ousted by activist investors.<\/p>\n

Last week, Mr Musk branded Glass Lewis and ISS \u201ccorporate terrorists\u201d and said: \u201cI just don\u2019t feel comfortable building a robot army and then being ousted because of some asinine recommendations from ISS and Glass Lewis who have no freaking clue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Denholm told the FT that the special committee set up to design the pay package \u2013 which was made up of her and director Kathleen Wilson-Thompson \u2013 explored whether there was a way to give Mr Musk the voting rights he wanted without the vast payout.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere wasn\u2019t an instrument that you could use that could do that,\u201d she said. \u201cWe searched high and low for it, but we ended up using restricted stock, which does have economic rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

The proposed $1 trillion compensation award includes 12 tranches of restricted stock that are each tied to ambitious milestones for its share price and operational performance.<\/p>\n

It would grant Mr Musk an additional 12 per cent of Tesla\u2019s shares if he increases its valuation to $8.5tn, boosts earnings 24-fold and sell millions more cars and robots. Achieving even half of those targets could make him the world\u2019s first trillionaire.<\/p>\n

Shareholders will also vote on a string of other proposals next week, including the reappointment of three directors and whether Tesla can invest in xAI. \u2013 Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tesla chairwoman Robyn Denholm has stepped up her campaign to win shareholder support for Elon Musk\u2019s $1 trillion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,1647,33992,19,17,1298,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-150854","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-elon-musk","11":"tag-executive-pay","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-tesla","15":"tag-work"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115455677883855577","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}