Tesla shareholders re-approve $56 bn package for Elon Musk

Tesla Inc shareholders have re-approved a $56 billion compensation package for CEO Elon Musk following a legal challenge. The vote was announced at Tesla's annual meeting in Austin, Texas, on Thursday.

The development comes after a Delaware judge in January 2024 voided the shareholder approval granted earlier in 2018, citing insufficient disclosures.

Elon Musk would get support in the form of stock options and shareholders' approval gives the billionaire a green signal to stay at the helm of Tesla. On the contrary, those who opposed the vote intended to send a message about the CEO's accountability and exorbitantly high package.

"Both Tesla shareholder resolutions are currently passing by wide margins," Musk told via X, thanking shareholders for their support.

He said the $56 billion package is not cash so "I can't cut or run or nor would I want to".

In January 2024, Chancellor Kathaleen St. J. McCormick of the Court of Chancery in Delaware ruled for a vote on the issue after some shareholders said there should be a limit on the compensation and that Musk's 2018 pay package was excessive.

With more stock options, Musk's share in Tesla has gone up from 13 to 20.5%. Tesla has not disclosed the vote details on the exchanges so far.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO remains the world's richest man with a total net worth of $207 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index.

Besides, Musk recently revealed that his AI startup, xAI, has grand plans to construct a supercomputer to enhance its AI chatbot, Grok. Musk aims to have this computational powerhouse operational by fall 2025 and is collaborating with Oracle to bring this vision to life.

Founded by Musk last year, xAI aims to challenge AI titans like Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Google's Alphabet. Musk, who co-founded OpenAI, has been vocal about his ambition to rival these giants. Earlier this year, Musk mentioned that training the Grok 2 model utilised around 20,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs and future versions like Grok 3 will require a staggering 100,000 of these chips.

Musk also outlined plans for a "gigafactory of computing" to support xAI's ambitions. This supercomputer, integrating 100,000 Nvidia chips, is reportedly set to be up and running by fall 2025. Musk has assured investors of his commitment to meeting this deadline.

In another news, the Tesla chief executive this week said he will ban Apple devices at his companies if the iPhone maker integrates artificial intelligence firm OpenAI’s ChatGPT at the operating system level. Musk called Apple’s latest move to integrate ChatGPT access into experiences within iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia an “unacceptable security violation.”

“It’s patently absurd that Apple isn’t smart enough to make their own AI, yet is somehow capable of ensuring that OpenAI will protect your security & privacy! Apple has no clue what’s actually going on once they hand your data over to OpenAI. They’re selling you down the river,” Musk said.