Elon Musk says Tesla will give some new stock options to top performers

Elon Musk says Tesla will give some new stock options to top performers after shareholders approved his own record-breaking compensation package.

Part of the irony behind the fact that a judge rescinded Musk’s CEO compensation package at Tesla for misleading shareholders is the fact that the weeks prior to the decision, Tesla had also canceled stock compensations for employees.

However, employees didn’t have shareholders rallying to make sure they get their stock options like Musk had.

Last week, shareholders voted again for Musk to get his compensation plan worth $55 billion in shares.

Following his victory at the shareholders meeting, Musk now says that Tesla will again start giving out stock options to employees, but not to everyone.

The CEO now says that grants will go to “exceptional performance”:

Over the next few weeks, Tesla will be doing a comprehensive review to provide stock option grants for exceptional performance. There will also be an ongoing program to award spot option grants for anyone who does something outstanding for the company. Thanks for everything you’re doing to make Tesla successful.

On top of canceling stock options for employees at the end of last year, Tesla also canceled pay adjustments for many workers.

Musk has often used Tesla’s stock options, which were available to all employees, to argue that Tesla pays its workers better than most other automakers.

That was true when Tesla’s stock performed well, but the stock is down 26% year-to-date.

Electrek’s Take

I really wish shareholders would have fought for employees to keep their stock options half as much as they did for Elon.

Now, it looks like Elon felt bad that he is getting his stock options, as long as a judge agrees with Tesla’s use of ratification, but Tesla employees weren’t.

Not bad enough to give them back to all workers, but only to do those with “exceptional performance”. I guess that’s a start.