Lawyer Speaks Out Against Musk Pay
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A lawyer who spoke against Elon Musk’s Tesla salary claims he was ousted by the company as a result. The situation illustrates persuasive communication and character.
Retired law professor of corporate governance Charles Elson of the University of Delaware planned to submit a legal brief to dispute a $56 billion package for Musk. Students can analyze the legal brief, which the judge referred to as “persuasive.” For a legal document, it’s an unusually fun read, including the footnotes, the first of which clarifies, “Musk did not actually found Tesla, but he was a very early investor and its fourth CEO.”
Here’s an excerpt:
Elon Musk is not unique. Musk is an archetype that we have seen before and will see again: a confident, charismatic founder1 with world-class sales ability and a “reality distortion field”2 that inspires outsized enthusiasm in customers and employees alike. Musk is very special, but he is not a one of a kind.
Bill Gates. Jeff Bezos. Mark Zuckerberg. Larry Brin. Sergey Page. Not one was an “ordinary executive” or “typical CEO.”3 Each was “intimately involved in all aspects of [their companies’] operations,” and “instrumental in transforming” it.4 Each had “a proven track record of visionary, transformational leadership[.]”5
None was paid like Elon Musk.
Elson says that Tesla threatened to drop him as a legal consultant if he filed the opposing letter. Elson struck back, calling the move “extraordinary and appalling” and “a fig leaf for Musk, acting through Tesla, to try to bully a law professor by making a serious economic threat to a law firm with which the professor had a consulting relationship.” He also said, “I was shocked by the whole thing,” but if you have to choose between your job and your integrity, you choose your integrity every time.” The law firm denies being pressured by Tesla to remove Elson, instead staying that his views were “inconsistent with the firm’s obligations to its client.”
For his part, Musk threatened to move the business to Texas if his compensation isn’t approved. Musk is not known for his humility.
