Washington, DC
CNN
—
Elon Musk stated that he had to obtain what amounted to the most important reimbursement bundle in historical past in order that he may just gas his objectives round “inter-planetary travel,” Tesla board chair Robyn Denholm testified Tuesday.
Denholm’s testimony got here as a part of the week-long trial within the Delaware’s Court of Chancery in Wilmington that examines Musk’s 2018 Tesla reimbursement bundle that has a internet worth these days of $50.9 billion. Musk himself is scheduled to testify Wednesday morning.
Musk has lengthy claimed that he intends to make use of his huge wealth in pursuit of area shuttle and colonization. In 2020, Musk stated in an interview with Axel Springer he would personal “almost no possessions with a monetary value,” as a substitute devoting this capital to growing a town on Mars.
Later in her testimony, Denholm stated that the reimbursement was once in the end about motivating Musk to focal point his consideration on Tesla, fairly than the specifics of what he’d do with the cash.
“Quite honestly, I don’t know how much it costs to do any inter-planetary travel. It’s not a hobby of mine,” Denholm stated.
Beyond Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter, Musk additionally leads the Boring Company, which focuses on underground tunneling, and is the founding father of Neuralink, which seeks to place laptop chips in other folks’s brains.
The corporate’s using pastime in awarding Musk such a huge reimbursement bundle was once to stay his focal point on Tesla, versus his different corporations. Denholm stated Tuesday that Musk’s earlier reimbursement bundle sooner than the 2018 plan wasn’t good enough to stay him engaged at Tesla.
“It was around motivating him to achieve things that were bold and audacious and him putting his time and energy into that as opposed to his other interests,” Denholm stated.
She stated the precise quantity of hours Musk would paintings was once no longer essential, fairly that the board wanted his “focus and attention.”
Whether Musk’s reimbursement plan is enough to stay him concerned with Tesla might be in query. Much of Musk’s consideration of overdue seems concerned with a splashy funding he has made because the reimbursement plan helped him turn out to be the sector’s richest guy, even though it doesn’t contain inter-planetary shuttle. Musk spent $44 billion not too long ago to shop for Twitter, the social media platform.
He’s since laid off part the team of workers and workers have described a chaotic transition as Musk says he’s attempting to go back it to profitability.
Musk remaining yr that he could be stunned if the corporate had no longer put an individual on Mars by way of 2026. As of this writing, on the other hand, SpaceX has but to ship an individual past Earth’s orbit.