Tesla investors have backed a record-breaking pay package for boss Elon Musk and approved a plan to move the firm’s legal headquarters to Texas.
The deal was blocked earlier this year by a judge in Delaware over concerns it was unfair to shareholders.
The vote is a victory for the multi-billionaire, who had campaigned fiercely for the payout, which is worth up to $56bn (£43.9bn). The exact amount depends on the Tesla share price.
“Hot damn, I love you guys,” he told a crowd of enthusiastic shareholders who had gathered in Texas for the firm’s annual meeting.
The deal is worth more than 300 times what the top-earning boss in the US made last year, and more than 3,000 times the average CEO’s pay package.
However, the vote is not binding and legal experts have said it is not clear if the court that blocked the deal will accept the re-vote and allow the company to restore the pay package.
“The vote changes nothing,” said Mathieu Shapiro, a managing partner at law firm Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel.
“It only offers Tesla opportunities to try to use the vote to obtain a better decision going forward.
“It will be interesting to see if another court is willing to credit a vote taken after the trial court’s decision.”
The eye-popping sum had sparked criticism and raised concerns that the board of Tesla was too submissive and close to Mr Musk.
In the January court ruling, Delaware judge Kathaleen McCormick ruled the sum was “unfair” and the process for determining the package, by a board dominated by Mr Musk, was “deeply flawed”.
Chancellor McCormick had pointed out that Antonio Gracias, who had been a board director at Tesla, had “the sort of personal relationship that had him vacationing with Musk’s family on a regular basis”.
She also highlighted Todd Maron, Tesla’s former general counsel, “who was Musk’s former divorce attorney and whose admiration for Musk moved him to tears during his deposition”.
BBC