Tesla shareholders vote to reinstate Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package

Tesla shareholders on Thursday voted to ratify CEO Elon Musk's mammoth 2018 pay plan, five months after a judge in Delaware ordered the company to rescind the package, finding it had been improperly granted by the board.

At Tesla's annual meeting in Austin, Texas, the vote in support of the compensation plan, doesn't override the court's ruling, but provides a public relations victory for Musk and could help his effort to sway a court to give him his performance options in the future.

Taking the stage after the preliminary results were announced, Musk said, "I just want to start off by saying hot d---! I love you guys."

Watch Elon Musk speak at the Tesla shareholder meeting now

The compensation package was previously worth as much as $56 billion in Tesla stock. In January, a Delaware court called the pay "unfathomable." Judge Kathaleen McCormick found that Tesla's board members lacked independence from Musk, failed to properly negotiate at arm's length with the CEO and didn't to give shareholders the full picture before asking them to vote on his pay plan.

Tesla shares rose 2.9% in regular trading on Thursday to close at $182.47 after Musk posted on X that the proposal was set to be approved. The stock is still down 27% for the year, as Tesla reckons with declining sales tied to an aging lineup of electric vehicles and increased competition in China.

The annual meeting featured final votes on a dozen proxy proposals, including an effort by Musk to move Tesla's site of incorporation out of Delaware, where most large publicly traded companies are incorporated, and into Texas, home to the automaker's largest U.S. factory. Shareholders voted in favor of the move.

At the last shareholder meeting, in May 2023, Musk predicted the