Bonuses should reward good behaviour, not bribe the boss to behave.
Tesla’s $30 billion (€25.7 billion) gift to Elon Musk – it will award him 96 million Tesla shares in two years, if he stays put for five – reads less like gratitude and more like desperation.
After all, Musk hasn’t exactly been setting the gold standard lately. Tesla’s UK sales plunged 60 per cent last month. Musk’s far-right messaging has sparked an enormous backlash across Europe, where Tesla sales keep tumbling.
The latest dramatic numbers come from Sweden and Belgium, with registrations plunging 86 and 58 per cent, respectively.
The news learned to follow us everywhere. No wonder we are hiding from it
The mortgage is paid off; what can we do with the €800 a month now available to us?
US Federal Reserve’s direction of travel on interest rates has rarely been this opaque
Couples struggling to buy a home even with State supports
And in the US, Musk hasn’t just alienated the liberal EV crowd – he has also fallen out with Donald Trump, alienating both sides of the political divide.
Against this backdrop, Tesla insists “retaining Elon is more important than ever before”. This reward will “incentivise” him to remain at Tesla, “energising and focusing” him.
Will an extra $30 billion persuade the world’s richest (Musk is reportedly worth $400 billion) and arguably most distracted man to become, well, less distracted?
Maybe not but Tesla investors don’t mind, with shares rising on the news. Perhaps focus is overrated in a stock driven more by myth than management.
