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Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and X, speaks at the Atreju political convention organized by Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy), in Rome, Dec. 15, 2023.

Antonio Masiello | Getty Images

Two weeks after a Delaware court ruled that Tesla must rescind Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package, the company’s board remains mum on what the decision means for shareholders or what’s next for the mercurial CEO.

In her 200-page opinion on Jan. 30, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick called the pay plan the largest in public corporate history, and said it was agreed upon by people “who were beholden to Musk.” Since then, Musk has lashed out at the court, posted “Never incorporate your company in the state of Delaware” on his social media platform X, and said Tesla would hold a shareholder vote to move its site of incorporation to Texas.

Tesla hasn’t yet issued an SEC filing to notify shareholders of the ruling.

The decision came shortly after Musk indicated that he’s pushing for even more control of Tesla, posting on X in mid-January that he wanted roughly 25% voting control before turning the company into a leader in artificial intelligence and robotics. Musk is already building an AI company called xAI outside of Tesla.

The next step in the compensation case is an “implementing order” that will be hashed out between the court, Musk’s team and the lawyers representing shareholder Richard Tornetta, a former heavy metal drummer who was the plaintiff in the 2018 lawsuit filed on behalf of all Tesla investors.

As shareholders await answers, Tesla’s eight-person board, which includes Musk, his brother Kimbal, Chairwoman Robyn Denholm and former Tesla technology chief JB Straubel, has stayed silent, avoiding any public comments.

CNBC sent requests for additional information to Tesla investor relations, Musk and some board members. They all went unanswered.

Musk's future at Tesla under scrutiny

Greg Varallo, who was lead counsel for Tornetta and is head of the Delaware office of Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann, told CNBC that theoretically Musk and his legal team could still pursue a last-minute settlement. While Varallo said he has no knowledge of Musk’s plans, he said he expects Musk to appeal the decision to the Delaware state Supreme Court.

“I’d give you very high odds on that,” Varallo said.

Kobi Kastiel, a law professor at Tel Aviv University, also predicts that Musk will appeal the ruling. Kastiel wasn’t involved in the litigation but he co-authored a 2023 paper in the Washington University Law Review titled “Superstar CEOs and Corporate Law” that was cited in McCormick’s ruling.

“Given the high stakes involved, it is likely that Tesla will appeal the decision,” Kastiel said in an email. In the absence of a successful appeal, “any new compensation arrangement with him will have to be assessed” in light of McCormick’s decision, Kastiel said.

‘Bunch of options would be returned’

In the 2018 CEO compensation plan, Tesla’s board awarded Musk a dozen tranches of stock options that would finish vesting in 2022 and were based on milestones, including many focused on stock price increases.

Between the beginning of 2018 and the end of 2022, Tesla shares soared almost 500% as Musk promised to turn Tesla into not just a dominant EV brand, but a robotaxi company and solar juggernaut, among other things. The S&P 500 gained 44% over that stretch, while the Nasdaq rose 52%.

Eric Talley, a professor at Columbia Law School, told CNBC that, should the ruling stand, Musk will lose his options but not any shares he previously held. The move would decrease the number of shares outstanding, potentially bolstering the value of each share held by investors.

“A bunch of options would be returned to Tesla’s coffers, which is hugely accretive to stock value,” said Talley, who wasn’t involved in the case. On the other hand, Talley pointed out, “Tesla has a very grumpy CEO who might want to take his ball and go home. Thus far, trading suggests those two factors have been a wash.”

Tesla shares are down slightly since the Delaware court’s decision in late January. They’re down close to 25% for the year, while major indexes are up.

Musk voiced a strong preference for moving his businesses out of Delaware following the court’s decision, and encouraged others to do so as well.

He moved the incorporation location for his brain computer interface company, Neuralink, from Delaware to Nevada, filings revealed last week. He’s also been a big proponent of Texas in recent years, personally relocating there from California, and building massive complexes for SpaceX and Tesla in the state, which has no personal income taxes and a much lower business tax rate.

Author Walter Isaacson, who published a 688-page biography on Musk last year, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday that if the ruling doesn’t get overturned, “it’s going to hurt Delaware.”

“People will say, ‘Wait, wait, you mean five years after something happens, eight years after something happens, you’ll go back and undo it?'” Isaacson said.

Tulane Law School professor Ann Lipton had a different take.

Tulane Law professor Ann Lipton on Elon Musk's pay package, legal impact of Tesla's move to Texas

“It’s a very thorough opinion and the Supreme Court should give great deference to the factual findings of the trial court,” Lipton said.

In terms of what shareholders should ask of Tesla’s board now, Kastiel said, “Tornetta and recent media reports on Musk have emphasized the importance of accurate and detailed disclosure of the ties between controlling shareholders and directors.”

There’s a more fundamental concern at play, Kastiel said, regarding corporate governance in cases where a “superstar CEO” is running the show.

“As long as the CEO is perceived as a star and the company depends on the CEO’s vision and leadership, even nominally independent directors — those without strong ties to the CEO — will have difficulty monitoring the CEO’s conduct,” he said.

Kastiel also said that the decision likely makes Musk and Tesla more vulnerable to other types of lawsuits.

“Plaintiffs may have a better chance of advancing their claims by potentially leveraging the Tornetta findings to argue that the majority of the Tesla board is not independent of Musk,” he said. “To mitigate this risk, Tesla will need to significantly enhance the independence of its board and nominate new independent directors who do not have strong ties to Musk.”

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Apple’s 3-day loss in market cap swells to almost $640 billion

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Apple's 3-day loss in market cap swells to almost 0 billion

(L-R) Apple CEO Tim Cook, Vivek Ramaswamy and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem attend the inauguration ceremony before Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th U.S. President in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 20, 2025.

Saul Loeb | Afp | Getty Images

While the stock market broadly fared better on Monday than in the prior two trading days, Apple got hammered once again, losing 3.7%, as concerns mounted that the company will take a major hit from President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The sell-off brings Apple’s three-day rout to 19%, a downdraft that has wiped out $638 billion in market cap.

Apple is one of the most exposed companies to a trade war, analyst say, due largely to its reliance on China, which is facing 54% tariffs. Although Apple has production in India, Vietnam and Thailand, those countries also face increased tariffs as part of Trump’s sweeping plan.

Among tech’s megacap companies, Apple is having the roughest stretch. On Monday, the only stocks to drop in that group of seven were Apple, Microsoft and Tesla.

The Nasdaq finished almost barely up on Monday after plummeting 10% last week, its worst performance in more than five years.

Analysts say Apple will likely either need to raise prices or eat additional tariff costs when the new duties come into effect. UBS analysts estimated on Monday that Apple’s highest-end iPhone could rise in price by about $350, or around 30%, from its current price of $1,199.

Barclays analyst Tim Long wrote that he expects Apple to raise prices, or the company could suffer as much as a 15% cut to earnings per share. Apple may also be able to rearrange its supply chain so that imports to the U.S. come from other countries with lower tariffs.

Apple declined to comment on the tariffs.

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Apple’s highest-end iPhone could see $350 price hike in U.S. on Trump tariffs, analyst predicts

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Apple's highest-end iPhone could see 0 price hike in U.S. on Trump tariffs, analyst predicts

A customer checks Apple’s latest iPhone 16 Plus (right) and Apple’s latest iPhone 16 Pro Max (left) series displayed for sale at Master Arts Shop in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, on Sept. 26, 2024.

Firdous Nazir | Nurphoto | Getty Images

President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs could lead Apple to raise the price of the iPhone 16 Pro Max by as much as $350 in the U.S., UBS analysts estimated Monday.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max is Apple’s highest-end iPhone on the market, and currently retails for $1,199. UBS is predicting a nearly 30% increase in retail price for units that were manufactured in China.

Apple’s $999 phone, the iPhone 16 Pro, could see a smaller $120 price increase, if the company has it manufactured in India, the UBS analysts wrote.

Shares of Apple have plummeted 20% over the past three trading days, wiping out nearly $640 billion in market cap, on concern that Trump’s tariffs will force the company to raise prices just as consumers are losing buying power.

“Based on the checks we have done at a company level, there is a lot of uncertainty about how the increased cost sharing will be done with suppliers, the extent to which costs can be passed on to end-customers, and the duration of tariffs,” UBS analyst Sundeep Gantori wrote in the note.

Apple, which does the majority of its manufacturing in China, is one of the most exposed companies to a trade war. China has a potential incoming 54% tariff rate — before new increases were proposed Monday. Smaller tariffs were also placed on secondary production locations, such as India, Vietnam and Thailand.

JPMorgan Chase analysts predicted last week that Apple could raise its prices 6% across the world to offset the U.S. tariffs. Barclays analyst Tim Long wrote that he expects Apple to raise prices, or it could suffer as much as a 15% cut to earnings per share.

If Apple were to relocate iPhone production to the U.S. — a move that most supply chain experts say is impossible — Wedbush’s Dan Ives predicts an iPhone could cost $3,500.

Morgan Stanley analysts on Friday said Apple could absorb additional tariff costs of about $34 billion annually. They wrote that although Apple has diversified its production in recent years to additional countries — so-called friendshoring — those countries could also end up with tariffs, reducing Apple’s flexibility.

After last week’s “reciprocal tariff announcement, there becomes very little differentiation in friend shoring vs. manufacturing in China — if the product is not made in the US, it will be subject to a hefty import tariff,” Morgan Stanley wrote.

Last week, the firm estimated that Apple may raise its prices across its product lines in the U.S. by 17% to 18%. Apple could also get exemptions from the U.S. government for its products.

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Elon Musk’s brother slams Trump tariffs, calls them ‘permanent tax on the American consumer’

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Elon Musk's brother slams Trump tariffs, calls them 'permanent tax on the American consumer'

Kimbal Musk, co-founder of The Kitchen Community, speaks during the annual Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, May 3, 2016.

Patrick T. Fallon  | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Elon Musk’s younger brother, Kimbal, took to the social network X on Monday to lambaste President Donald Trump’s tariffs, calling them a “structural, permanent tax on the American consumer.” He also said Trump appears to be the “most high tax American President in generations.”

“Even if he is successful in bringing jobs on shore through the tariff tax, prices will remain high and the tax on consumption will remain the form of higher prices because we are simply not as good at making things,” Kimbal Musk wrote on X, one of the companies in his brother’s extensive portfolio.

The younger Musk owns a restaurant chain called The Kitchen, is a board member at Tesla and a former director at SpaceX and Chipotle. He has also co-founded and invested in other food and tech startups, including Square Roots, an indoor farming company, and Nova Sky Stories, a creator of drone light shows that he bought from Intel.

Elon Musk is a top advisor to Trump, overseeing the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, an effort to drastically cut federal spending, largely through layoffs, and consolidate or eliminate agencies and regulations. However, his relationship with some key figures in the Trump administration has been showing signs of strain in recent days as the president’s sweeping tariffs have led to a dramatic selloff in stocks, including for Tesla, which is down 42% this year and just wrapped up its worst quarter since 2022.

Over the weekend, Elon Musk took aim at Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro, disparaging his qualifications in a post on X.

“A PhD in Econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing,” Musk wrote, after Navarro told CNN on Saturday that “The market will find a bottom” and that the Dow will “hit 50,000 during Trump’s term.” It’s currently at about 38,200.

Musk also said that Navarro hasn’t built “sh—.” Navarro told CNBC on Monday that Musk is “not a car manufacturer” but rather a “car assembler,” dependent on parts from Japan, China and Taiwan.

Tesla was seeking a more moderate approach to trade and tariffs in a recent letter to the U.S. Trade Representative.

According to Federal Election Commission filings, Kimbal Musk this year has contributed funds to the Libertarian National Committee and Libertarian Party of Connecticut. In 2024, while his brother became the biggest financial backer and promoter of Trump, Kimbal donated to Unite America PAC, a group that markets itself as a “philanthropic venture fund that invests in nonpartisan election reform to foster a more representative and functional government.”

A representative for Kimbal Musk didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

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