Twitter CEO Elon Musk, testifying at his Tesla compensation trial in Delaware, told the court that he plans to find someone else to run Twitter, according to a new report.
Musk also reportedly said that the fundamental restructuring of Twitter will be complete at the end of this week, and that the Tesla engineers whom he had asked to review code at Twitter worked on a voluntary basis.
Defense asks Musk about Twitter: He says he plans to find someone else to run it. As for those Tesla engineers “reviewing code”, they were there on a voluntary basis after hours, Musk says.
— Becky Peterson (@beckpeterson) November 16, 2022
The trial is examining Tesla’s 2018 compensation plan for the billionaire. The plan awarded Musk shares of the company, which would be valued more as Tesla stock rose. The year before Musk’s compensation plan was awarded, Tesla had lost nearly $2 billion.
“The compensation plan included 12 batches of stock that Musk would receive if milestones were hit, including the market capitalization of Tesla as well as its revenue and adjusted earnings,” CNN reported, noting that each batch would be earned if the company’s market capitalization rose an extra $50 billion over $100 billion.
The company issued a statement to stockholders in which they explained why they were awarding the compensation plan to Musk.
“As Tesla continues to grow, we have created a new 10-year performance award for Elon that incentivizes him to not only continue to lead Tesla over the long-term, but to help the company achieve these great goals. You will find more details about the proposed award in the following pages, but the basic premise is simple — Elon’s compensation will be 100% aligned with the interests of our stockholders,” a statement from the company said.
“Elon will receive no guaranteed compensation of any kind — no salary, no cash bonuses, and no equity that vests by the passage of time. Instead, Elon’s only compensation will be a 100% at-risk performance award, which ensures that he will be compensated only if Tesla and all of our stockholders do extraordinarily well,” it continued. “The award consists of stock options that vest only if Tesla achieves specific milestones, which if fully achieved would make Tesla one of the most valuable companies in the world with a market capitalization of at least $650 billion — more than 10x today’s value.
In 2020, Tesla shares skyrocketed an astonishing 743% as the best performing U.S. stock and it became the company became the most valuable automaker on Earth. Musk received no pay that year; the stock options he received were estimated at a value of $22 billion.
“Four of Musk’s stock tranches vested during the course of 2020, giving him the right to buy 33.8 million shares at an exercise price of $2.4 billion,” CNN reported in August 2021. “As of Friday’s close, those stocks were worth $21.9 billion.”
