While Pushing to Give Himself a Massive Bonus, Elon Musk Apologizes for Stiffing Laid-Off Employees

A new low.

Fired and Stiffed

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has become hellbent on gifting himself a previously thrown-out $56 billion pay package, with the company going as far as to launch an entire website exclusively designed to convince other shareholders of the plan.

That's despite Tesla facing some very tough months ahead, with the carmaker laying off a whopping ten percent of its staff this week.

Meanwhile, Musk had to apologize to those he fired for stiffing them with severance packages that "are incorrectly low," according to an internal email he sent to employees, as quoted by CNBC.

"My apologies for this mistake," he added. "It is being corrected immediately."

Severed Ties

Musk is no stranger to shortchanging laid-off employees. Ex-Twitter executives, including former CEO Parag Agrawal, filed a lawsuit against X-formerly-Twitter last month seeking over $128 million in unpaid severance.

"Under Musk’s control, Twitter has become a scofflaw, stiffing employees, landlords, vendors, and others," a court filing reads. "Musk doesn’t pay his bills, believes the rules don’t apply to him, and uses his wealth and power to run roughshod over anyone who disagrees with him."

The news also comes after Reuters reported that the EV maker had given up on the Model 2, an affordable mass-market vehicle, in favor of a "robotaxi."

The revelation seems to have disappointed investors, with Tesla stock tumbling below $150 per share today, wiping out much of the gains the company made in 2023.

Tesla is down around 37 percent so far this year, scraping along the bottom as one of the worst-performing companies on the S&P 500.

In other words, screwing up the severance packages of employees you just fired while also leading an entire campaign to reinstate your $56 billion compensation plan is bound to leave a bad taste in investors' mouths.

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