Elon Musk Takes the Stand to Defend His Tesla Compensation

Tesla CEO Elon Musk testified this week in a shareholder lawsuit that challenges his massive compensation package from the electric car giant. The lawsuit calls Musk a “part-time CEO” and alleges he was able to influence the company’s board of directors, claiming few if any directors are actually independent of Musk.

CNN reports that Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently testified in a shareholder lawsuit examining the compensation he received for his role of CEO. Musk received a massive $50 billion compensation package in 2018, which is the subject of the lawsuit by plaintiff Richard J. Tornetta, who says the company was wrong to pay Musk so much.

Musk began the day under cross-examination by the plaintiff’s attorney, who queried him about Tesla’s governance, his time on the company, his relationship with the independent board, and whether he adhered to his obligation to increase Tesla’s value.

Musk acknowledged that he had gone on family vacations with board members, including some who are close friends. When questioned by the judge, Musk said that he had done everything in his power to increase Tesla’s market value, but did admit that he had not always sought board approval prior to making public statements.

The suit claims that Musk’s huge pay package was an instance of unjust enrichment, and that the board neglected its legal obligation to act in Tesla’s best interests. The suit refers to Musk as a “part-time CEO” since he is involved in running other organizations, which now includes Twitter. The court will determine whether Tesla’s board truly operates independently from Musk and represents the interests of shareholders or if he was able to influence the board into awarding him such a large salary.

Musk initially claimed that he had not negotiated against himself regarding how many shares he would receive in the pay package. Negotiating against himself would essentially give Musk control over the outcome and raise questions as to whether the board met its fiduciary responsibilities.

However, the plaintiff’s attorney, Gregory Varallo, then played some of Musk’s deposition in which he said at one point discussing his pay package, “that was I guess me negotiating against myself.”

This marked just one of several occasions in which Vrallp highlighted inconsistencies in Musk’s statements. Just three minutes into questioning, Musk said that the believed that here had been consultation with the board of directors prior to Musk changing his title to “Technoking.” Varallo then replayed Musk’s deposition in which Musk stated that he had not consulted the board over the title change.

Musk also said in the deposition that he was the individual that invented the vision for Tesla. But in court, Musk objected to being asked the question in a yes-no format. “I believe you are asking complex questions where yes or not is not possible. Yes is more accurate than no,” Musk said. “But your question is a complex question that is commonly used to mislead people.”

Read more at CNN here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan