Musk lost his $56 billion pay package appeal on Monday. A Delaware judge upheld her 2018 pay plan ruling.
"Even if a stockholder vote could ratify, it could not here," Judge Kathaleen McCormick wrote. Elon Musk lost his bid to reinstate his 2018 CEO pay package on Monday when a Delaware judge upheld her ruling that it was improperly granted.
The $56 billion package was the largest public company executive compensation plan in U.S. history.
After the trial, Musk's attorneys tried to persuade the Delaware business court judge to reinstate his pay plan. In June, Tesla shareholders voted to "ratify" Musk's 2018 pay plan at its annual meeting in Austin, Texas.
In her Monday opinion, Judge Kathaleen McCormick wrote, "Even if a stockholder vote could have a ratifying effect, it could not do so here." Tesla shareholders' lawyers won a $345 million attorney fee award for voiding the pay plan.
"We are pleased with Chancellor McCormick's ruling, which declined Tesla's invitation to inject continued uncertainty into Court proceedings and thank the Chancellor and her staff for their extraordinary hard work in overseeing this complex case," the plaintiff's attorneys, Bernstein, Litowitz, Berger & Grossmann, said.
Musk slammed the court on X in January after McCormick pulled the plan. "Never incorporate your company in the state of Delaware." In June, the company reincorporated in Texas after a shareholder vote.
Judge McCormick answered Musk's motion that Tesla's ratification vote for his pay package should cause her to reverse her prior opinion, "Were the court to condone the practice of allowing defeated parties to create new facts for the purpose of revising judgments, lawsuits would become interminable."
Despite the setback, Musk's net worth has risen in recent weeks. Musk is over $43 billion richer since Donald Trump's election last month, excluding the pay package's options. Tesla shares are up 42% in the four weeks since the election on hopes that Musk's cozy relationship with the incoming president will lead to pro-company policies.
Following Monday's close, his Tesla stock is worth nearly $150 billion. Even without SpaceX, that would make him one of the world's wealthiest.