Illustration: Lille Allen / The Verge
On Thursday, Tesla shareholders will face a stark choice: approve Elon Musk’s enormous pay package, the largest ever awarded to a chief executive, or risk him picking up his ball and going home.
The shareholder meeting on Thursday is a referendum on Musk’s tumultuous leadership, in which he took a relatively niche startup, wrested it away from its founders, and turned it into what is arguably one of the most consequential car companies in modern history. To reward him for this feat, shareholders are being asked to cast an unprecedented vote on Musk’s compensation — to the tune of $50 billion — for the second time.
Last January, a Delaware court judge invalidated Musk’s pay package, first approved in 2018, arguing that the process was…
