The Tesla directors who just proposed giving Elon Musk a trillion dollars say it’s “critical” he stay out of politics

Tesla’s board just laid out a plan that could eventually make Elon Musk a trillionaire. They also made it clear that they don’t want him involved in politics.

In the same filing that outlined the Tesla CEO’s blockbuster potential pay package, the special committee that recommended it also wrote that it was “critical” that it “receive assurances that Musk’s involvement with the political sphere would wind down in a timely manner.” 

Musk, as you may remember, spent a big chunk of last year campaigning for and donating to Donald Trump, a move that initially won him favor from the eventual president but also drew ire from Tesla’s customer base. Then Musk ran Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, and laid off thousands of government workers. Then he got into a pissing match with Trump over government spending and wound up suggesting he was in the Epstein files. Then he decided to start his own political party. Then he kind of abandoned that idea.

Throughout that process, there was a lot of criticism about how much of Musk’s attention was sucked away by his government involvement — even from Musk himself. And investors have jumped into and bailed out of Tesla’s stock seemingly based on the vibes of his relationship with the president, which, depending on which way the wind blows, could be very good or very bad. 

Even still, the company doesn’t appear to be putting up hard guardrails for Musk’s political ambitions. The filing doesn’t mention enforcing any rules on involvement, and it doesn’t even say the committee actually did receive the assurances that Musk would wind down his involvement — just that it thought it was critical to get them. 

The board even recommended voting against a shareholder proposal that suggested putting in place a “political neutrality policy,” saying it “would not serve the best interests of Tesla or our shareholders” in part because the situations are complex and could be “impossible or unlawful” for the board to enforce.

Was Dan Ives right about how to keep Musk tied to Tesla?

Several of the details in Musk’s potential pay package are similar to those Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives laid out over the summer, including giving Musk a 25% stake in the company and setting up guardrails for how long Musk would have to stay in his position. (After Ives made those recommendations, Musk told him to “shut up.”)

It seems, at least, that Tesla’s board was listening — or at least the ideas were mainstream enough that he and the committee came to similar conclusions. The committee’s proposed pay would push Musk’s ownership of Tesla up to about 25% voting power. And the performance-based compensation stipulates that Musk can only get full compensation after hitting a number of ambitious benchmarks over the next 10 years.

Today, Ives took a victory lap, writing that the “majority of these incentives were mostly included in our 3 step list mentioned in early July where the Board of Directors had to step in to ensure Musk would commit to Tesla through 2030.”

One notable exception was No. 3 on Ives’ list: “oversight on political endeavors.”