Tesla: Musk get his compensation package, teases new EVs

First, regarding what is to come, Musk teased three new electric cars at Tesla’s annual stockholder meeting. “We got some new products we’re working on. They’re going to be pretty special. Just wait, they will be.” However, Musk did not give any details and simply showed a presentation slide with three cars still covered by sheets. The silhouettes look similar to what Tesla teased at Investors Day in March 2023 – two appear to be a smaller vehicle model, while the other looks like a van or a new SUV. 

One of the former could be Tesla’s Robotaxi, which was announced with the Master Plan II. Musk confirmed that the EV would launch on 8 August. Moreover, the carmaker said in April that it will launch new, affordable vehicles, which will be able to combine features from two platforms – the current and the future (“next-gen”). But again, that is all speculation at this point.

However, the meeting also made headlines for other reasons: Musk’s 2018 CEO compensation package and the incorporation move to Texas. Both of these were ratified by the shareholders, which did not really come as a surprise, as Musk had published the preliminary result of the vote on X. The shareholders still had time to change their minds before the start of the actual Annual General Meeting. However, this would have had to be the case for owners of more than 400 million Tesla shares to overturn the provisional result.

Officially, it is about the salary package. But on the stock market, the vote is more important than its purely financial value: it is also seen as an indicator of EV Musk’s future at Tesla—will Musk stay with the billion-euro remuneration, or will the entrepreneur lose interest in Tesla? When Musk published the provisional result of the vote at X alone, Tesla shares rose by 6.7 per cent in pre-market trading.

However, it remains to be seen whether Musk will actually receive the 56 billion US dollar share package, even with the resolution of the annual shareholder meeting. The controversial share options were awarded to Musk in 2018, but a private investor successfully filed a lawsuit in a US federal court in Delaware. The package was put to the vote again in 2024. However, analysts point out that the remuneration package could still be declared illegal. In the aforementioned proceedings in Delaware, the federal judge had ruled against Tesla, but the final judgment is still pending.

Speaking of Delaware, the proceedings were conducted there because that is where Tesla’s formal headquarters are located (for tax reasons). The actual headquarters were moved from California to Texas during the Covid-19 pandemic. The formal headquarters will now be moved to Texas. Here, the shareholders have also voted in Elon Musk’s favour and decided to relocate. Based on the preliminary results, the Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, already welcomed Tesla on social media: “Welcome to a state that has neither a personal nor a corporate income tax.”

electrek.co (compensation), insideevs.com (new models), tesla.com, x.com