A judge in the US state of Delaware on Monday upheld her previous decision to block a mega reward of approximately $56 billion for Tesla CEO Elon Musk. She did this, despite Tesla shareholders agreeing to the compensation plan for a second time in June. However, the judge stuck to her previous ruling from January, in which she ruled that Tesla’s board was too influenced by Musk when it adopted the compensation plan in 2018.
The stock options package was initially worth $2.6 billion. But that value had risen to 56 billion by the time the judge blocked it early this year. Based on Monday’s closing price, the package is now worth more than 101 billion. Even without the mega reward, Musk is already the richest man in the world, with a fortune of more than 300 billion dollars.
The remuneration package was rejected by the judge at the beginning of this year after a complaint from a small investor. An important argument at the time was that investors had not been fully informed about some important details.
The case attracted a lot of attention worldwide. More than 8,000 Tesla shareholders sent letters to the judge expressing their views. And Musk was so angry about the judge’s decision that he initiated a formal move of Tesla from the state of Delaware to Texas, where the automaker is headquartered.
Musk has 30 days to decide whether to appeal the ruling.