I am confused. These are the lawyers that sued Tesla and won, not Elon/Telsa's lawyers, and they want that sort of payout due to the cost savings to Tesla? If so, I wonder who funded the original lawsuit -- was that not enough -- or was this the idea all along?
It's straightforward. The attorneys are arguing that because they have prevented what amounts to the embezzlement of $50b from Tesla and its shareholders, they are entitled to close to 10%. This is similar to SEC whistleblowers.
> The Commission is authorized by Congress to provide monetary awards to eligible individuals who come forward with high-quality original information that leads to a Commission enforcement action in which over $1,000,000 in sanctions is ordered. The range for awards is between 10% and 30% of the money collected.
How does it amount to embezzlement? I understand the SEC reward is for whistleblowing, but how is it whistleblowing if the information want publicly available via filings?
Elon packed the board with personal friends who would never in a million years turn down any compensation package he asked for. The extent of their relationship was not disclosed in public filings. It's reasonable for the shareholders to ask if maybe the money could have been better spent on R&D or a cheaper CEO than being shuttled off as personal funds for the CEO.
> Typical elements of the crime of embezzlement are the fraudulent conversion of the property of another person by the person who has lawful possession of the property.
You can read about the extent of the alleged fraud in the judgment, but it is clear that the board was nothing more than sycophants _not_ acting in the fiduciary interest of the shareholders.
"If so I wonder who funded the original lawsuit -- was that not enough -- or was this the idea all along?"
The plaintiffs law firms "funded it" by working for free, on a contingency basis: if plaintiffs win, the law firms get paid for their work. They won. Now they seek payment for their work.
I don't understand why everybody thinks this fee is outrageous. These lawyers just saved Tesla's shareholders way, way more than that. Pay $6 billion to get $50 billion? I'll do that deal all day long and twice on Sundays.
It might be better for Tesla shareholders than the past two years when he’s been essentially absent, but nobody else can step in to make decisions. The company is clearly behind in core product development and spent way too much time on Musk’s stale old follies like the Cybertruck.
Elon leaving Tesla would be the one thing _to_ make me invest. The company has fantastic growth potential being squandered by Musk on useless products like the Cybertruck.
Tesla's core customer is a person buying a fairly spartan EV sedan or crossover. That's not going to change until the current rate of Cybertruck production and pre-order delivery acceptance changes.
chuckke nobody buys a car because they feel like giving a billionaire money.
I mean, if you can afford to spend $100k just to simp for Elon Musk, god bless you, but the rest of us want $100k of value when we pay $100k for a car.
The board, run by the shareholders, wanted that deal and put it in place. They must have thought that the value add was worth it. Granted, it seems many do not think they acted correctly, hence the ruling and the lawsuits.
The point is that time will tell if this really saves money over the long run. I do not know the law and I am not questioning the board here.
About 78% or so of the shareholders voted in favour of the deal. And will probably vote again when asked.
The lawsuit was done by a shareholder with a total of 9 (nine) shares.
If those 78% of shareholders believe that Elon having $56B MORE is a priority in their lives, then should just voluntarily give Elon their shares or send him cash.
Companies and shareholders meetings work a bit differently than what you suggest.
Other than that, the grand majority of Tesla shareholders are quite happy with the financial state of the company and would like for Musk to continue leading the company and be compensated for it.
One person with domain knowledge of running things could be well worth it. How many times have you seen adding more people just make it a bigger, more unsustainable mess?
Musk would be paid in stock, so the "shareholders" did not win or lose anything (unless we assume the shareholders are at war with each other). If he turns sour ... i cant imagine the shareholders feeling like they won much.
In other news, cheap EVs are entering the market so maybe it's a good opportunity for Elon to escape Tesla before it becomes a legacy brand name that some chinese maker will buy in a few years (like chevrolet or sth).
Some shareholder benefited a lot. Some bought at the top and have only had negative returns. Some have a net zero cause the bought at this point on the way up.
Just because some people have astronomical returns doesn't mean everyone received the same.
An example with smaller numbers: Suppose a company is worth $10 and has 10 shares. The board issues 10 more shares to one person.
Sure, the company would still be worth $10. But there are now 20 shares outstanding. Everybody except the guy who got 10 shares would see their shares fall in value from $1 to 50 cents.
Basically, issuing stock to one person has the effect, mutatis mutants, of transferring wealth from all the other shareholders to the person who got the new stock.
Still the total value the shareholders hold is the same so they have have not been damaged as a group, which is alleged here. The damage is psychological, i.e. most of them are jealous of one of them
I could see this as a recursive lawsuit. One set of lawyers negiotates the pay down to the payment down to 3 billion. The next set of lawyers argues two billion is too high and negiotates it down to 1 billion, all the way to zero. It's lawers all the way down!
I’d love to see a legal system that is comprehensible enough for a layman so pro se is the go-to option and the lawyers are for the real tricky cases, or people who can’t or don’t want to even think about it.
Not happening, of course. Modern legal systems have incentives to build barriers.
(For what it’s worth, I’ve never needed a lawyer and I’ve dealt with immigration in two countries and some basic legal stuff. Wasn’t a rocket science - the worst of it were all the unwritten rules. But of course, that was quite simple and straightforward stuff - surely, there are legal issues that are much more complex.)
Alas, you wouldn't like a legal system which a layman could understand, any more than you'd like a computer which a layman could understand.
We are doing things, as a society and as a species, which take far longer than one individual lifetime to learn, so we divide up the work and specialize.
There's an important key difference - no one is forcing anyone to understand how computers work in detail, and the situation where one needs this specialized knowledge is quite uncommon. Thus, this can be left to the specialists.
I do believe, though, that everyone should probably know how the computers work at the extremely high level, though. Because virtually everyone deals with computers those days, so this knowledge is nearly essential. And if someone wants to learn more for whatever reason - they should be more than welcome to do so, without any artificial barriers. No one should ever say "computers are really hard, only licensed engineers should be allowed to... (idk what)"
In the same way of logic, consider that everyone is a part of a legal and political systems, whenever they want it or not. Which is why I'd like to make those as accessible as reasonably possible, with the basics well comprehensible so you don't normally need a lawyer.
I think a better comparison could be with electricians, plumbers or builders. And with those, no one should need a specialist to do basic stuff (like replacing a light bulb or installing a bidet), and no one should be actively discouraged from learning more advanced things.
I'm saying this as someone who re-wired a fire hazard of an old house (with copper-aluminium twists from '40s, no grounding, and so on) up to a proper code (checked with a real electrician, of course), installed a water heater after old one had failed, replaced a car radio, etc. - just because I had time and desire to learn and do it myself (also saved some money). At the same time, I've happily went to a mechanic when there was something with the starter and I'm about to call a contractor for a simple leaky faucet, just because I don't have time for this.
Computers or anything else - I'm all for all the modern man-designed systems to be understandable and/or serviceable. So anyone with a working brain can do things themselves if they want it and have time for it, and no one is forced to hire anyone unless they prefer it that way (which is totally fine - like you've said, we divide work and specialize, optimizing our resources). Save the obvious exceptions where the risk of harming others is too high - e.g. the building codes are there for a good reason.
And I'd say some legal systems look way too unnecessarily complicated (or poorly designed) to me. And popular culture is complicit in re-enforcing this isn't helping - it's reinforcing the current status quo. Which seems to contradict the whole idea of resource optimization.
// no one is forcing anyone to understand how computers work //
There is something very right about this, or the implication of this: Everybody, no matter how dumb or smart, rich or poor, educated or illiterate, is expected to comply with EVERY law, all day, everyday, 24/7, every minute of their lives. Whether they know about those laws or not.
So yeah, having a broadly understandable and accessible legal system is a necessity.
Nevertheless, at the rate we are inventing new algorithms (like LLMs), new financial techniques (like derivatives) and are going into new realms (like space), there are exponentially more opportunities for people to collaborate with each other--or, unfortunately--harm each other. So we need ever more laws. A few, simple laws just cannot give us all the protections we want, or create enough of a space for cooperation. There is an element of irreducible complexity.
I think there are many people who held no opinions about lawyers UNTIL they needed one :)
I personally have had only positive experiences, but I've heard the horror stories. Beyond just the expected divorce stuff. Of course what matters are the circumstances.
The law decides that. These compensations are not determined by some open "market" , but by what is basically protectionism for the legal professions in most countries. And guess who writes the laws.
> Who gets to decide how much everybody "deserves" for their work? Answer, the payer and the payee. You don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.
...unless you're Musk who negotiated a deal with the company he leads only to have a few shysters insisting the deal is off while claiming 10% of the negotiated deal for themselves.
The board of Tesla did agree with the terms and conditions, probably because they thought the conditions would not be met.
IIRC, neither - Continental European notaries have a governmental mandate but are not government officials themselves.
In Germany, the issue is with real estate - about 1% of the price go to notary fees, which is many thousands of euros for most purchases. No matter what, this is outrageous.
chuckle why stop there? motherhood seems to be a quite important job. I don't know about you, but my mother didn't even get minimum wage for all her mothering.
How much she got is the same number, whether you measure it in dollars, euros, or pounds: 0.00
Minimum wage never meant livable wage. A specialized professional is typically paid a market rate many times higher than minimum wage. I’m not sure why lawyers should be treated differently (regardless of feelings towards some).
It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
The idea that minimum wage was never a living wage and never meant to be is a rewriting of history.
That makes no sense, as it equally rewards lazy people with abilities too lazy to be applied, and people who took years out of earnings to learn new skills.
Of course, the comment might have been obvious trolling.
Not trolling. What, pray tell, is a fair wage? Who gets to decide?
// people who took years out of earnings to learn a new skill //
Here in Indiana, you have to have a Master's degree to be a teacher. Average wage is around $50k. Or you could get a B.S. in communications an and make 2-3x that doing P.R.
Or you could just drop out of high school to become a "creator" at only fans and make zillions a year taking pictures of your toes.
If you want a system which rewards years of learning new skills, this one ain't it.
A fair wage is what the market will pay. Unfortunately for most teachers, there is not a fair market, but a vise with government and unions on either side they’ve created for themselves. Also, when teacher salaries are evaluated at an hourly rate (30 hour weeks, 11-weeks of vacation per year), it’s not as bad as it seems.*
* My wife was a teacher, my parents were teachers, my aunts and uncles were teachers, my grandparents were teachers, my kids are in school and I deal with their teachers. I’m sympathetic to the profession, and have also watched how those steering the ship head right for the iceberg while telling everyone warming them that they aren’t educators so they couldn’t possibly understand. I’m fine letting them lie in the bed they’ve made while getting paid a zillion times more being an IC at a company on one has ever heard of.
Well, I wouldn't go that far (cf. my example above on the pay differential between the oldest profession and the second-oldest profession) But it does at least set prices in a way which both buyer and seller agree on.
// they aren't educators, etc //
You have a way to let teachers make substantially larger wages? Let's hear it:-)