[woobar]

CEOs get all kinds of compensation. Business jet travel, security, etc. This line item could be just tax optimization for this guy.

I am not trying to defend him, he is getting paid a lot:

"On May 5, 2023, the Board granted Mr. Aquila an award of 6,884,682 RSUs. These awards vest on May 5, 2024, subject to continuous service." [1]

At current stock price it is ~$20M. Getting outraged about additional $1.7M that was negotiated several years ago is strange. It does make a great headline, but would it change anything if he is paid $22M and pays for the jet out of pocket?

[1] https://ir.stockpr.com/canoo/sec-filings-email/content/00016...

[axlee]

Well, what kind of world-class engineers could he get for $1.7M a year? How many salespeople ?

Seems like the CEO's comfort when travelling should be a lot lower in the company's list of priorities, as it's losing hundreds of millions a year.

[throwawaymaths]

Canoo did a 1:23 reverse split last month, so take that into account.... His comp in Rsus is probably shy of $1M

[woobar]

Great point, I did not know this. OTOH, at the time of grant it was a respectable $5M, and it is not the first one.

[singleshot_]

It would make a difference to the IRS, wouldn’t it?

[gangstead]

Totally agree. I'm not usually in the habit of defending millionaires. But I thought there used to be a justification for private jet travel of maximizing the CEO's time. The company is investing $20M per year in this asset and he's probably flying for meetings all the time and if a private jet cuts a couple hours of airport transit / wait time off of each flight it's probably worth it for the increased amount of meetings he can attend.

Maybe that can be achieved for less than $1.7M, I'm not informed enough. This source https://simpleflying.com/gulftream-g700-cost-to-own-operate-.... says it's a little more than $2M per year to operate a Gulfstream G700, I don't know what kind of jets CEOs are using these days.