Elon Musk's massive salary is on the agenda at electric car manufacturer Tesla's annual general meeting on Thursday. Ahead of the meeting, Musk announces that he has the broad support of shareholders.
The issue at hand is a remuneration package, currently worth around 500 billion kronor, which owner and CEO Musk received in 2018. A court later rejected the package, making it a question for shareholders.
Now, Elon Musk writes on the X platform that the question of the remuneration package has received the necessary number of votes for approval. He also states that the relocation of the company's registration from Delaware to Texas – where the headquarters is located – has been given the green light.
Musk refers to two graphs with preliminary voting results. These show that the remuneration package has received nearly 1.4 million yes votes and the Texas relocation around 2 million, which is well above the required margin.
Swedish small investors
Shareholders had until late on Wednesday to vote.
Among others, Swedish small investors have had their say on Musk's massive salary. Online banks Avanza and Nordnet have allowed customers with Tesla shares in their portfolios to vote.
My impression is that people want to be involved, to vote yes to this large package, says Frida Bratt, savings economist at Nordnet.
Avanza has over 75,000 customers with shares in Tesla, and Nordnet has 59,000. Of Avanza's customers, 11,400 chose to vote. However, the corresponding figure for Nordnet is unclear.
According to Frida Bratt, shareholders want to vote yes to the package, among other things, due to fear that Musk will leave if the proposal does not go through.
There may be uncertainty about Musk's future commitment to the company. Some of this uncertainty has already been seen in the share price, which has been under pressure lately.
"A chicken race"
The interest organisation Aktiespararna had not supported a remuneration package of this size if the same thing had happened in a Swedish company.
The organisation agrees that there is a fear that Musk will leave.
It's like Elon is playing a "chicken race" with the shareholders: if you don't vote for it, I'll leave, says Sverre Linton, chief lawyer at Aktiespararna.
But the biggest loser if Tesla's value plummets is Elon himself, which speaks against him leaving.
Among the heavyweight shareholders who have opposed the remuneration package and said no is the Norwegian oil fund.
