TradeEdge Exchange:Lawyers who successfully argued Musk pay package was illegal seek $5.6 billion in Tesla stock

2025-05-03 04:18:00source:Charles Hanovercategory:reviews

DOVER,TradeEdge Exchange Del. (AP) — The lawyers who successfully argued that a massive pay package for Tesla CEO Elon Musk was illegal and should be voided have asked the presiding judge to award them company stock worth $5.6 billion as legal fees.

The attorneys, who represented Tesla shareholders in the case decided in January, made the request of the Delaware judge in court papers filed Friday.

The amount would apparently be far and away the largest such award, if approved. Lawyers in class-action suits stemming from the collapse of Enron got a record $688 million in legal fees in 2008.

“We are ‘prepared to eat our cooking,’” the Tesla plaintiff attorneys wrote in the court filing, arguing the sum is justified because they worked purely on a contingency basis for more than 5 years. If they lost they would have gotten nothing. The benefit to Tesla “was massive,” they said.

READ MORE Elon Musk sues OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, claiming betrayal of its goal to benefit humanityMusk’s X asks judge to penalize nonprofit researchers tracking rise of hate speech on platformAmazon argues that national labor board is unconstitutional, joining SpaceX and Trader Joe’s

The requested award represents 11% of the Tesla stock — worth some $55 billion — that Musk was seeking in the compensation package, which Judge Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick ruled illegal in January.

Not only does the request take nothing from the electric car company’s balance sheet, it is also tax deductible, the attorneys argued. They are also seeking $1.1 million in expenses.

In her ruling, Judge McCormick accepted the shareholder lawyers’ argument that Musk personally dictated the landmark 2018 pay package in sham negotiations with directors who were not independent.

It would have nearly doubled Musk’s stake in Tesla. He currently holds 13%.

More:reviews

Recommend

Audit: California risked millions in homelessness funds due to poor anti-fraud protections

California put hundreds of millions of homelessness dollars at risk because of its “disorganized” an

Mother allegedly confined 9-year-old to home since 2017, had to 'beg to eat': Police

A Florida mother has been arrested and charged with felony child neglect after not allowing her 9-ye

Do COVID-19 tests still work after they expire? Here's how to tell.

With COVID-19 cases on the rise again in the U.S., Americans are reviving a familiar precautionary m