Elon Musk

This year, like any other, is turning out to be a busy one for Elon Musk. In late January, a judge at Delaware’s Chancery Court voided his $56 billion pay package from 2018, agreeing with a minor shareholder that it was unfair. Judge Kathaleen McCormick said the board had not done its due diligence in awarding the package. Shortly after the ruling, Musk tweeted: “Never incorporate your company in the state of Delaware”. Musk has strong ties with his board, both personal and financial, and McCormick pointed out that it was far from independent. Elon’s brother Kimbal is on the board, and is said to be good friends with another member, Ira Ehrenpreis, a sizeable investor in other Musk companies, including SpaceX. McCormick also said that a member of the Tesla’s compensation committee, Antonio Gracias, has a business and personal relationship with Musk and that they had taken holidays together. She added that Tesla’s general counsel, Todd Maron, who advised Tesla’s compensation committee, was “totally beholden to Musk”, and had been “moved to tears” in his admiration of Musk during his deposition.

The Wall Street Journal reported in early February that some board members had taken drugs with Musk. Neither Musk nor his lawyer Alex Spiro responded to the newspaper’s request for comment. It has reported in the past that Musk has taken cocaine, LSD, and ecstasy, among other drugs, and Spiro was on record as telling the paper that Musk regularly underwent drug testing at SpaceX, and had never failed a test. For his part, and it helps to own a large social network, Musk tweeted, “Whatever I’m doing, I should obviously keep doing it!”, adding that if drugs had helped to improve his net productivity over time, “I would definitely take them!”