--- title: "As Sales Continue to Plummet, Tesla Is Considering a Massive Payday for Elon Musk" description: "The Tesla board has formed a new committee to review Elon Musk's pay, which includes exploring a brand-new pay package." date: "2025-05-14" modified: "2025-05-14" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/tesla-massive-payday-elon-musk" categories: - "Advanced Transport" - "Elon Musk" - "Future Society" - "Tesla" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "elon musk" - "tesla" --- # As Sales Continue to Plummet, Tesla Is Considering a Massive Payday for Elon Musk ![The Tesla board have formed a new committee to review Elon Musk's pay, which includes exploring a brand new pay package.]() *\Image: Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty / Futurism\* As car [sales plunge]() and its [brand image]() goes up in flames, Tesla's board has formed a special committee of exactly two people to review CEO Elon Musk's compensation — including potentially offering him a brand new pay package in stock options, the [*Financial Times* ]()[reports](). The two committee members are Tesla's chair, Robyn Denholm, and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson. Its existence was disclosed with just a single sentence in a filing last month, causing major investors to reach out to the board to gauge their feelings on Musk, according to the *FT*. Along with a new pay package, the committee will also consider ways to compensate Musk for past work if Tesla can't go through with his [outrageous 2018 pay package]() worth over $98 billion in today's stock options, which was [blocked by a Delaware judge]() last year and is currently undergoing appeal in the state's supreme court. Shareholders, meanwhile, are terrified that their supreme leader [will leave the company]() if he doesn't get all the money he was promised. It's a questionable moment for Tesla to be worrying about furnishing Musk, the world's richest man, with billions of more dollars, since he's a big reason why the automaker is in crisis mode. His [extremist views]() and his [role in the Trump administration]() have inflamed public opinion of himself and his automaker, which reported its first-ever annual decline in sales last year and has inauspiciously started this year with a 13 percent sales plunge [in the first quarter](). He also made a [disastrous gamble]() with the widely reviled Cybertruck and could be stumbling into another one by betting the company's future on a [dubious pivot to the robotaxi business](). Musk's payout has been a lengthy saga. First proposed in 2018, the exorbitant pay package has faced legal challenges in Delaware, where Tesla was originally incorporated. In January 2024, the deal — at the time worth $56 billion — [was blocked]() by Delaware supreme court judge Kathaleen McCormick, who ruled that the "unfathomable sum" was excessive and unfair to shareholders. When she threw out the plan for a [second time]() in December 2024, McCormick accused Musk of controlling the Tesla board and holding sham negotiations. Critics have long accused the automaker's board of being [too submissive to Musk]() (or, in [McCormick's view](), acting "like supine servants of an overweening master"). And with many of them [making eye-watering sums]() by offloading their own shares in the company, some doubt they're always acting in Tesla's best interests. Denholm, chair of the company's board, has dumped $198 million worth of Tesla stock in the past six months alone, the [*New York Times* reported](). Since being hand-picked by Musk to lead the board in 2018, she's made more than $530 million, far more than her peers at the most valuable US companies. That does not signal someone who's committed to the company's long-term success. As it stands, the committee is still in the early stages of deliberation, according to the *FT*, with no guarantees on reaching an agreement on Musk's new compensation package. If the voided 2018 deal is reinstated on appeal, it would raise Musk's ownership of the company from 13 percent to over 20 percent. Even this may not be enough to satisfy Musk, however. In May last year, he [threatened]() to take away Tesla's AI and robotics products and build them at his other companies, like xAI, if he wasn't given 25 percent ownership. But if Tesla decides to issue a new payment package, it'll come at an enormous cost: on top of Musk's payment, Tesla would have to pay a $50 billion accounting charge, plus a 57 percent punitive tax for Musk. **More on Tesla:** *[As Crisis at Tesla Deepens, a Hail Mary Is Turning Out to Be a Major Bust]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()