His salary from Tesla's bank accounts is zero. Companies don't have their market cap in their bank accounts as cash which they use to pay executives.
Also, not like other automakers don't have recalls like this. You just don't hear about it here because... reasons. The legendary name for quality, Toyota had its wheels literally falling off.
tesla booked musk's much-discussed options package as a $2.5 billion expense. opportunity cost aside, it's silly to imply that a public company isn't going to act differently after it's stuck a significant fraction of its revenue on the wrong side of its balance sheet: analysts definitely will be.
> tesla booked musk's much-discussed options package as a $2.5 billion expense
As stated elsewhere the point is that you cannot pay for car quality with stock options that are worth zero if the stock doesn't double and car sale increases don't meet really high metrics
Unlike the other car companies that pay CEOs directly, like Toyota could've used their CEO's pay to instead maybe stop their wheels from falling off recently.
> it's silly to imply that a public company isn't going to act differently after it's stuck a significant fraction of its revenue on the wrong side of its balance sheet
If Elons pay package from 2018 gets revoked and they issue a new one (supposedly after moving from Delaware to Texas law), then it’s estimated Tesla will have $20bn+ accounting charge
> Tesla noted that since 2018, Musk hasn't drawn any compensation, including salary or cash bonuses
His stock compensation was performance based/
> Shareholders approved Musk’s pay package back in 2018. However, according to an Axios report, very few investors at the time believed that they would have to pay out on it. That’s because the compensation plan was tied to extreme performance goals that seemed improbable Therefore, at the time, the expected value of the Tesla pay package was “closer to zero than it was to $56 billion”
You cannot pay for auto parts quality with stock options that pay out only when 'extreme peformance goals' are hit. So Musk's salary had pretty much zero impact on this recall, unlike, say, other company car recalls which they could have presumably used the company CEO's salary to prevent the recalls, going by the assumption that the OP was making.
As of now he is actually paid 0 for last 4 years when Tesla stock has gone up by 900% (even after the recent stock slide).
People forget that if the stock price didn’t at least double and Tesla meet some manufacturing and sales quotas, Elon’s pay package would be 0. The only reason he’s getting paid 44B or whatever number is because the stock price has gone through the roof and the Model Y has become the best selling car in the US. On top of that, he is required to hold the stock for at least 5 years, so even if the judge didn’t invalidate his pay, he wouldn’t see any liquidity for at least 5 years.
You don’t need to like Elon to see that his pay package was completely fine. I doubt many CEO’s would accept a pay package where they don’t get paid a dime unless the stock price at least doubles, a very large number of CEO’s would also be paid 0 under such a pay package.
How does this not create perverse incentives? I have noticed that Musk has repeatedly made fraudulent claims about Tesla. I can't help but wonder how many of his fantastical claims are precisely in service of boosting the stock price. Also what exactly are the material consequences for him if he didn't get paid by Tesla? Essentially zero.
“Material consequences if he didn’t get paid by Tesla” sounds so scarily close to communism “To each according to his need, from each according to his ability”. It shouldn’t matter whether he needs it or not. It was an agreement that was made, an agreement I think was pretty fair and one that most corporate CEO’s in America today would not take but Elon took it, won that agreement and now people are balking up at payment. Promises made, promises kept or society does not function, “need” is the absolute last thing that should ever matter in this calculus
The point is that you cannot pay for car quality with stock options that are worth zero if the stock doesn't double and car sale increases don't meet really high metrics. So the OP in this thread is wrong.
What they said would be true of all the other car companies that directly pay the CEO, and they all have safety recalls. Lets take Toyota. Toyota could've used some of the CEOs pay to stop wheels from falling off their cars recently.
Okay, that’s a good point. It’s not liquid. In theory, though, surely the company could sell stock (or options, even) instead of granting it to Elon?
[Edit: this is all a bit academic though. I don’t think Tesla’s process problems, of whatever magnitude you think they are, are as simply solved as “if they just spent a bit more this would be fine!”, or that the ‘solution’ to the Elon problem, of whatever magnitude you think that is, is “if they just paid him less!”]
I don't think its too misleading because in both cases that's how many vehicles are affected at very moment by the recall.
Toyota shipped/sold more as mentioned in the article, but those are unaffected. Likewise with the Tesla, any shipped afterward the defect was discovered are unaffected.
Also, not like other automakers don't have recalls like this. You just don't hear about it here because... reasons. The legendary name for quality, Toyota had its wheels literally falling off.