With Tesla shareholders set to vote on a proposed 10-year, $1 trillion compensation package for CEO Elon Musk in November, Chairman Robin Denholm spoke to the New York Times to defend what would be the largest pay package in corporate history .
Denholm, who was also on the special committee that proposed the compensation, argued that Musk must be motivated by the extraordinary challenges involved in extraordinary compensation. At the same time, she suggested that he was less interested in the additional wealth represented by the promised Tesla stock and more in the voting power.
“I think it’s a little strange, talking about dollars when it’s actually the impact of voting,” said Denholm, who the Times described during the interview as “sick from time to time.”
It might also seem counterintuitive to offer such a large compensation package when Tesla’s profits and vehicle sales are declining, but Denholm insisted the plan is about “future performance.”
“It’s not about past performance,” she said. “He doesn’t get anything if he doesn’t perform against the goals.”
As TechCrunch previously noted, the package’s goals are significantly less ambitious than some of the promises Musk has made for Tesla in the past.
