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+--- Thread: Elon's Final $56 billion Delaware Court Victory (/thread-19422.html)
Elon's Final $56 billion Delaware Court Victory - Yazata - Dec 20, 2025
In 2018, the Tesla board of directors approved an equity compensation plan for Elon, Tesla's CEO. Elon was to receive a salary of $0 dollars a year, but receive a tranche of company stock each time agreed market cap and operational performance objectives were met. Some of these objectives were pretty ambitious, and would make Tesla more valuable than General Motors for example. (Which it now is.) Tesla shareholders voted to approve the plan, recognizing that Elon wouldn't get paid unless shareholders made lots of money.
Years later a Tesla shareholder who owned a tiny number of shares (four shares I think, but he was a political activist) filed a shareholder class action lawsuit in Delaware court, where Tesla was incorporated at the time, alleging that Elon's $0 pay package was excessive, because Elon had met most of the required performance and market cap objectives and was set to receive Tesla stock worth $56 billion at then current prices. (The stock was only worth that much because of what Elon had achieved with the company.)
And a Delaware judge ruled to void the contract without proposing a smaller one, meaning Elon had worked for free without any compensation for all those years.
Then Tesla shareholders held another shareholder vote, voting that Elon's original contract was indeed the will of the shareholders, despite this single litigant claiming to represent all of them in Delaware court.
The Delaware judge refused to budge and Elon's contract remained voided. Upon which, Tesla left Delaware and reincorporated in Texas. But the Delaware judge insisted on keeping jurisdiction over the pay package, since it was decided upon while Tesla was a Delaware corporation.
Well, today the Delaware state Supreme Court issued a ruling in favor of Elon, overturning the lower court judge's rulings and reinstating Elon's equity pay package! "We reverse the Court of Chancery's rescission remedy". That's a $56 billion ruling for our boy Elon! (Too little, too late Delaware. Tesla's already moved its legal address to Texas.)
Of course Elon doesn't really need the money, as much as it is. What Elon really wants is the stock, so that he owns a large enough ownership stake in Tesla that he can steer its path in the future. That's very important to Elon now that Tesla is getting so deep into AI with self-driving cars and Optimus Teslabots. Along with a new equity pay package recently passed by the shareholders under Texas law, this decision should put Elon in the 20-25% ownership range.
https://courts.delaware.gov/Opinions/Download.aspx?id=389200