{"id":1149,"date":"2025-07-11T09:24:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T09:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/1149\/"},"modified":"2025-07-11T09:24:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T09:24:09","slug":"elon-musks-tesla-finally-sets-a-shareholder-meeting-date-amid-doubts-about-his-long-denied-56-billion-pay-package","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/1149\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk\u2019s Tesla finally sets a shareholder meeting date amid doubts about his long-denied $56 billion pay package"},"content":{"rendered":"

Better late than never. Tesla announced<\/a> on Thursday it will hold an annual shareholders meeting on Nov. 6. The announcement comes some 24 hours after a letter<\/a> from more than two dozen investors in the $952 billion electric-vehicle maker pressed the board on when it would next go mano a mano with its shareholders.<\/p>\n

The last annual shareholders meeting<\/a> was a high-stakes event that saw investors approve CEO Elon Musk\u2019s controversial pay package<\/a> a second time and green-light a move from Delaware to Texas. Under Texas law, Tesla is required to hold an annual meeting within 13 months of the last one, which was held on June 13, 2024. Tesla notified investors about the meeting and set a July 31 deadline for shareholders to submit proposals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Harvard professor of law and economics John Coates<\/a> told Fortune Texas law<\/a> provides that companies like Tesla are to hold annual meetings, and that any shareholder can demand one in court if one has not been held within 13 months. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a crime, however, to fail to have one, and there is no particular penalty for waiting until a shareholder demands one,\u201d he said. Calling Tesla\u2019s delay \u201cillegal\u201d would be misleading, he explained.<\/p>\n

However, it\u2019s \u201ccertainly not normal to not hold a meeting within 13 months,\u201d said Coates. \u201cUsually it\u2019s small and under-resourced or distressed companies that fail to do so,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Tesla has yet to file a proxy statement\u2014which informs shareholders of the meeting agenda and items to be voted on\u2014that would likely answer swirling questions about Musk\u2019s controversial compensation. To refresh: His pay package<\/a> was structured as a moonshot mega grant initially valued at $2.6 billion before soaring along with shareholders\u2019 fortunes as high as $56 billion. It was to be the highest compensation ever awarded to the CEO of a publicly traded company. However, an investor challenged<\/a> it in court, and Delaware Chancery Court Judge Kathaleen St. J. McCormick rescinded it<\/a> twice<\/a>\u2014even after Tesla investors approved it a second time last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As it stands, it\u2019s unclear how the Tesla board will proceed with paying Musk, a prerogative for keeping him engaged at Tesla<\/a> amid his other competing interests and companies, board chair Robyn Denholm has said<\/a>. Tesla has faced serious pressure from investors over Musk\u2019s work with President Donald Trump\u2019s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and later Musk\u2019s bitter bust-up <\/a>with Trump. That followed with Musk announcing he would create a third political party, the \u201cAmerica Party.\u201d The announcement led to a selloff in Tesla shares, which led to $15 billion being wiped<\/a> from Musk\u2019s net worth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Following the announcement of the meeting date, a few of Tesla\u2019s investors were underwhelmed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a statement<\/a>, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander said the announcement was a \u201cwelcome, if belated, recognition that the rule of law applies to everyone\u2014even the world\u2019s richest man and his company.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe basic corporate governance rules are not optional; they are fundamental protections for shareholders and public markets,\u201d said Lander.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lehigh County Controller Mark Pinsley, a member of the Lehigh County<\/a> Pension Board, which voted last May<\/a> to halt any new investments in Tesla in the county\u2019s actively managed funds, said Musk\u2019s political ambitions have turned Tesla, a once transformative company, into a cultural fault line.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s time he stepped aside,\u201d Pinsley told Fortune. \u201cHis growing entanglement in politics, including his flirtation with launching a new political party, makes Tesla a proxy for ideological battles rather than a company focused on serving its workers or customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pinsley said Tesla \u201cbenefits enormously\u201d from simply being part of the S&P 500, meaning index funds are compelled to keep investing in the stock. It creates artificial demand that is largely\u00a0unrelated to fundamentals such as revenue, innovation, or governance, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand the long-term promise of autonomous taxis,\u201d said Pinsley. \u201cHowever, we\u2019re still years away from them generating significant revenue, so the [price-to-earnings ratio] remains way out of whack with the underlying fundamentals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plus, Tesla has become a lightning rod, he said, more divisive than visionary, which is a shame for a company that once held real promise to shape society, Pinsley added.<\/p>\n

\u201cTesla isn\u2019t riding on innovation right now, it\u2019s riding on inertia,\u201d he said. \u201cIts place in the S&P 500 keeps demand for its stock artificially high, regardless of performance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Better late than never. Tesla announced on Thursday it will hold an annual shareholders meeting on Nov. 6.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28,1427,1428,1429,1430,11,1431,1019,1432],"class_list":["post-1149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ceo-salaries-and-executive-compensation","tag-compensation","tag-corporate-boards-of-directors","tag-corporate-governance","tag-elon-musk","tag-shareholders","tag-tesla","tag-wealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}