MRC Mad On Musk’s Behalf That His Absurdly Huge Tesla Pay Package Was Voided

The Media Research Center’s latest defense of Elon Musk is to portray him as a victim because his absurdly high pay agreement with Tesla was voided by a court. Tom Olohan suggested in the headline of his Feb. 5 post that subjecting Musk’s pay deal to legal scrutiny was somehow “lawfare” and insisted he deserved every penny because he lived up to the incentives baked into the deal:

A recent decision to strip X and Tesla owner Elon Musk of $55 billion in Tesla stock seemingly appalled CNN This Morning co-hosts Phil Mattingly and Poppy Harlow. 

Despite the leftist network’s history of criticizing Musk and supporting censorship on his social media platform, Mattingly and Harlow were willing to say that Musk might have deserved the pay package recently stripped from him by a Delaware judge. On Jan. 30 a Delaware judge voided Musk’s $55 billion pay package from Tesla, an incentive-driven deal which Musk had taken instead of a salary. 

In response to the judge’s order, Mattingly appeared to defend the deal saying such an arrangement “should be how you structure your pay package, I would think.” 

Both Mattingly and Harlow agreed that Musk had taken a big risk in forgoing his salary and attempting to unlock the $55 billion payout by growing Tesla to enormous heights. Among other difficult tasks, Musk had to grow Tesla’s market capitalization to $650 billion. 

“Structurally, it was designed in a way that was giving him money to take risks and hit high, hard-to-reach incentives,” Mattingly said of the Musk-Tesla deal.

Olohan’s “lawfare” narrative fails the fact test; the lawsuit contesting Musk’s pay structure was brought by a Tesla shareholder, not the government. Olohan also left out important details as to why Musk’s pay structure was voided: Many of the Tesla directors who approved the deal had close ties to Musk, and that board members had an obligation to find another CEO who would be paid less. and it’s an obscene (well, “unfathomable” according to the judge) amount of money to pay to someone who isn’t even devoting full time to running the company (Musk also runs SpaceX and Twitter/X, among other things).

Instead of mentioning any of that, Olohan complained that people were pointing out that Musk is kind of a jerk:

By contrast, CNBC reporter Courtney Reagan absurdly asked on the Feb. 1 edition of Power Lunch if Musk was being a “little petulant” by considering incorporating his company in Texas instead of Delaware. “Seems a little petulant, then, perhaps to leave because of this pay package.” 

It’s only $55 billion after all. At no point did Reagan mention that Musk’s compensation package was based on incentives tied to Tesla’s growth. 

Olohan didn’t explain how someone who’s essentially a part-time employee deserves $55 billion.