Tesla launches website to convince shareholders to vote for Elon’s $55 billion payday
Tesla has launched a new website aimed at convincing shareholders to vote for reinstating Elon Musk’s $55 billion compensation plan.
Back in 2018, Tesla shareholders approved one of the biggest compensation plans of all-time: a $55 billion fully stock-based CEO compensation plan for Elon Musk.
In January, a judge sided with lawyers representing a Tesla shareholder alleging that Tesla’s board misrepresented the compensation package when presenting it to shareholders.
It’s a complicated issue, but in short, the judge found that Tesla’s board and Musk didn’t play by the rules of a public company when it presented the plan to shareholders.
The judge found that Tesla had governance issues when coming up with the compensation plan and those issues were not communicated to shareholders before voting on the plan.
Instead, Tesla claimed that the plan was negotiated by “independent board members” when it was found that some board directors had personal financial dealings with Musk outside of Tesla, amongst other things.
The Delaware court found that this invalidated the vote, and therefore, Tesla had to rescind the compensation plan.
Yesterday, Tesla told shareholders that it will ask them to vote on moving Tesla’s state of incorporation to Texas and then revote for Musk’s compensation plan without changing anything.
Now, Tesla has launched a new website called ‘SupportTeslaValue.com‘ to convince shareholders to vote for the package again.
The website opens up by claiming that giving the shares to Musk will “protect your investment and Tesla’s future”:
Most of the website is dedicated to the fact that the compensation plan was aligned with shareholders’ interests, super ambitious, and actually achieved the goals in the plan despite being super ambitious.
Virtually everyone can agree with all of that, but it’s not really what led the package to be rescinded.
The interests were aligned, but the judge did question the need for such a high compensation when Musk already owned more than 20% of Tesla at the time.
From the judge’s decision:
At a high level, the “6% for $600 billion” argument has a lot of appeal. But that appeal quickly fades when one remembers that Musk owned 21.9% of Tesla when the board approved his compensation plan. This ownership stake gave him every incentive to push Tesla to levels of transformative growth—Musk stood to gain over $10 billion for every $50 billion in market capitalization increase. Musk had no intention of leaving Tesla, and he made that clear at the outset of the process and throughout this litigation. Moreover, the compensation plan was not conditioned on Musk devoting any set amount of time to Tesla because the board never proposed such a term. Swept up by the rhetoric of “all upside,” or perhaps starry eyed by Musk’s superstar appeal, the board never asked the $55.8 billion question: Was the plan even necessary for Tesla to retain Musk and achieve its goals?
But the real issue is how the plan came about. The judge found that Musk was in control of Tesla and the board – leading to irregularities and how the plan was put together and negotiated.
That’s at the core of the judge decision and Tesla doesn’t really address it in its new SEC proxy statement and this new website.
This is the only section that sort of addresses it:
However, the testimonies from the Tesla board members, Musk, and everyone involved, led the judge to believe the work from the board wasn’t really “robust”.
For example, Todd Maron, a lawyer who represented Musk and formerly was his divorce lawyer, became Tesla’s general counsel when this plan was being negotiated:
The process leading to the approval of Musk’s compensation plan was deeply flawed. Musk had extensive ties with the persons tasked with negotiating on Tesla’s behalf. He had a 15-year relationship with the compensation committee chair, Ira Ehrenpreis. The other compensation committee member placed on the working group, Antonio Gracias, had business relationships with Musk dating back over 20 years, as well as the sort of personal relationship that had him vacationing with Musk’s family on a regular basis. The working group included management members who were beholden to Musk, such as General Counsel Todd Maron who was Musk’s former divorce attorney and whose admiration for Musk moved him to tears during his deposition. In fact, Maron was a primary gobetween Musk and the committee, and it is unclear on whose side Maron viewed himself. Yet many of the documents cited by the defendants as proof of a fair process were drafted by Maron.
That alone is a weird thing: having your divorce lawyer become your auto company’s general counsel.
The judge also argued that the board didn’t really negotiate the deal proposed by Musk. They made a few changes to align it with Tesla’s internal goals, but the judge believed the change couldn’t be described as “concessions” by Musk:
In this litigation, the defendants touted as concessions certain features of the compensation plan—a five-year holding period, an M&A adjustment, and a 12- tranche structure that required Tesla to increase market capitalization by $100 billion more than Musk had initially proposed to maximize compensation under the plan. But the holding period was adopted in part to increase the discount on the publicly disclosed grant price, the M&A adjustment was industry standard, and the 12-tranche structure was reached in an effort to translate Musk’s fully-diluted-share proposal to the board’s preferred total-outstanding-shares metric. It is not accurate to refer to these terms as concessions.
Tesla shareholders are going to vote on the plan again in June, along with the move to Texas and the re-election of two board members, including Musk’s brother, Kimbal Musk.
Electrek’s Take
Before voting, Tesla shareholders should look at more than the proxy and Tesla’s new website.
You should really read the judge’s decision, which includes excerpts from testimonies from basically everyone involved. It does undoubtedly paint the most accurate picture of how the plan came about – certainly more than the board saying they met 15 times to discuss this plan.
That’s all I’m asking. Read the judge’s decision.
Here’s the judge’s decision in full:
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Tesla reported three more crashes involving its Robotaxis in Austin, Texas – now bringing the total to 7 incidents despite low mileage and in-car supervisors preventing more accidents.
Since the launch of the ‘Robotaxi’ service in Austin, Texas, where Tesla moved the supervisor from the driver’s seat to the passenger seat, it now has to report crashes to NHTSA.
In the first month of operation in July, Tesla reported three crashes with its Robotaxi service.
The automaker reported one more Robotaxi crash last month, and this one was interesting because it coincided with Tesla announcing that the Robotaxi fleet had traveled 250,000 miles from its launch in late June to early November.
It revealed Tesla’s current Robotaxi crash rate, which is about 2x higher than Waymo’s, despite in-car supervisors that prevent an unknown number of crashes.
Now, Tesla has reported to NHTSA three more incidents that happened with the Robotaxi fleet in Austin in September:
| Report ID | Incident Date | Incident Time (24:00) | City State | Crash With | Highest Injury | Severity | Alleged SV | Pre-Crash Movement | CP Pre-Crash Movement | Narrative |
| 13781-1178 | 7 SEP-2025 | 13:08 | Austin TX | Animal | No Injured | Reported | Stopped | NM Crossing Roadway | [REDACTED, MAY CONTAIN CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS INFORMATION] | |
| 13781-1178 | 6 SEP-2025 | 03:43 | Austin TX | Non-Motorist: Cyclist | Property Damage. | No Injured | Reported | Stopped | Moving Alongside Roadway | [REDACTED, MAY CONTAIN CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS INFORMATION] |
| 13781-1178 | 4 SEP-2025 | 20:42 | Austin TX | Passenger Car | Property Damage. | No Injured | Reported | Proceeding Straight | Backing | [REDACTED, MAY CONTAIN CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS INFORMATION] |
| 13781-1168 | 7 SEP-2025 | 01:25 | Austin TX | Other Fixed Object | Property Damage. | No Injured | Reported | Making Left Turn | NaN | [REDACTED, MAY CONTAIN CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS INFORMATION] |
| 13781-1150 | 7 JUL-2025 | 03:45 | Austin TX | SUV | Property Damage. | No Injured | Reported | Stopped | Proceeding Straight | [REDACTED, MAY CONTAIN CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS INFORMATION] |
| 13781-1145 | 9 JUL-2025 | 12:20 | Austin TX | Other Fixed Object | Minor | W/O Hospit | alization | Other, see Narrative | NaN | [REDACTED, MAY CONTAIN CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS INFORMATION] |
| 13781-1137 | 5 JUL-2025 | 15:15 | Austin TX | SUV | Property Damage. | No Injured | Reported | Making Right Turn | Making Right Turn | [REDACTED, MAY CONTAIN CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS INFORMATION] |
Unlike other companies reporting to NHTSA, Tesla abuses the right to redact data reported through the system. The automaker redacts the “narrative” for each reported crash, preventing the public from knowing how the crashes happened and who is responsible.
Based on the limited information in Tesla’s reports, we know that one of the new crashes involved a Robotaxi driving into a car backing up, another involved a cyclist, and the last one involved an unknown animal.
Electrek’s Take
My favorite thing about reporting on those is the messages from Tesla fans who say: You don’t know how many of those Robotaxi are responsible for?
It’s funny because I agree, but whose fault is that? Tesla could do like every other company and report the narratives.
Waymo does, and it’s clear that it isn’t responsible for many of the crashes they are involved in. I am sure that’s the case with some of those Tesla Robotaxi crashes.
However, Waymo has hundreds of millions of rider-only autonomous miles, and Tesla has a few hundred thousand, all with a supervisor on board, a finger on a killswitch, ready to prevent further crashes. Who knows how many more crashes Tesla would have had without them?
I expect a few because humans generally have a crash, whether they are at fault or not, every 700,000 miles. Tesla has 7 in probably ~300,000 miles, which should be worrying to anyone, whether the Robotaxis were responsible or not.
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Hyundai is bringing “something big” to the LA Auto Show this week, and the teaser points to a slick new off-road electric SUV. Here’s our first look.
What is this off-road Hyundai SUV?
The LA Auto Show is just days away, and Hyundai is gearing up to steal the spotlight once again. Last year, it was the IONIQ 9, Hyundai’s first three-row electric SUV. What will it be this year?
Hyundai gave us a sneak peek of a new “extreme off-road show vehicle,” the Crater Concept, ahead of its upcoming debut.
Although details are still pretty slim at this point, the sketch shows a high-riding, rugged SUV, clearly designed for off-roading with massive tires and aggressive wheel arches.
Hyundai didn’t say what powertrain the off-road SUV will use, but given the closed-off grille and no visible tailpipes, all signs point to it being electric in some way. It could be a battery-electric (EV) or even a fuel-cell-electric vehicle (FCEV).
The Crater Concept looks a bit like the new Nexo, Hyundai’s dedicated hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. The updated Nexo introduces Hyundai’s new “Art of Steel” design language, which was first shown on the Concept THREE electric hot hatch in September.
Hyundai said the design theme “combines resilience with artistic form,” which exudes strength and sophistication.
The dour dot lamps on the Crater Concept look about the same as Hyundai’s new “HTWO” lamps, exclusive to its FCEVs.
Hyundai said the Crater Concept has been “crafted to amplify the same spirit and robustness found in Hyundai’s XRT production vehicles,” like the IONIQ 5 XRT, Santa Cruz XRT, and new Pallisade XRT Pro.
The design team at Hyundai Design North America also introduced its new design and ideation studio on Monday, codenamed “The Sandbox” internally.
Hyundai’s new creative hub is exclusively dedicated to creating new outdoor adventure vehicles and rugged Xtreme Rugged Terrain (XRT) gear.
Will the Nexo be next? It sure looks like it. Hyundai will reveal the Crater Concept during a livestream press conference at the LA Auto Show on November 20 at 9:45 am PT. Check back for updates.
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Terawatt Infrastructure has switched on its newest commercial EV charging hub in Rialto, California, giving electric truck fleets a new high-speed charging stop along one of the US’s busiest freight routes.
The hub is situated on the eastbound side of I-10 and is designed for heavy-duty fleet use, particularly for trucks traveling from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach through Southern California’s industrial centers.
Neha Palmer, Terawatt CEO and cofounder, said, “Our network enables companies to reduce emissions and run a variety of routes across a number of vehicle classes with the confidence of a dependable charging solution. EV fleets can now travel further, more cleanly, without slowing down their operations.”
The Rialto site is built with high‑speed charging, security, and amenities that support daily freight operations. Here’s what it offers:
- 18 pull‑through 350 kW DC fast‑charging stalls
- 55 bobtail parking stalls for overnight or shift‑based parking
- A driver lounge with wifi, climate control, and restrooms
- License plate recognition for quick entry
- Solar canopies and 100% renewable‑powered charging
- 24/7 security with cameras and gated access
Terawatt’s first medium- and heavy-duty electric truck charging stop in California, Rancho Dominguez, opened in April.
In September 2024, Terawatt joined some of the world’s largest shippers and carriers to launch the I-10 Consortium heavy-duty EV operations pilot, described as the first-ever US over-the-road electrified corridor. As part of that effort, Terawatt is providing charging infrastructure, including software, operations, and maintenance support, at six of its owned charging hubs along the I-10 corridor.
Read more: Maersk, PepsiCo, others to pilot a heavy-duty EV charging corridor between LA and El Paso
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