Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, operated by Norges Bank Investment Management, has said it will vote against Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package at Tesla’s annual meeting on Thursday.
In a statement, Norges Bank Investment Management said, “While we appreciate the significant value generated under Mr. Musk’s leadership since the grant date in 2018, we remain concerned about the total size of the award, the structure given performance triggers, dilution, and lack of mitigation of key person risk.”
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is valued at $1.7 trillion and is the eighth largest Tesla shareholder, per Reuters.
Robyn Denholm, chairperson of the Tesla Board of Directors, wrote in a letter to shareholders earlier this week, calling for “reciprocal respect.
Musk has no “shortage of ideas and other places he can make an incredible difference in the world,” she wrote.
Nicolai Tangen, the the Norwegian wealth fund’s chief executive, told the Financial Times in 2022: “We are seeing corporate greed reaching a level that we haven’t seen before and it’s really becoming very costly for shareholders in terms of dilution.”
Tesla shareholders will vote on Musk’s pay package on Thursday.
Investors approved Musk’s pay deal in 2018, but a judge in Delaware struck down the sum in January, calling it “an unfathomable sum” and forcing the board to reapprove it.
Last month, two large proxy advisor firms, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis, recommended voting against the package.
Referring to Musk’s fortune, Denholm said: “This is obviously not about the money. We all know Elon is one of the wealthiest people on the planet, and he would remain so even if Tesla were to renege on the commitment we made in 2018.”
Musk is the third richest person in the world, worth $203 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Although Tesla delivered record sales of more than 1.8 million electric vehicles worldwide in 2023, the EV maker has faced increased scrutiny in recent months.
According to emails obtained by CNBC earlier this week, Musk has been diverting important resources to his other businesses: social media platform X and his AI startup xAI.
Earlier this year, investors accused Musk of “blackmailing” them by tweeting that he was “uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI and robotics without having 25 percent voting control.”
In April, Musk sacked Tesla’s entire Supercharger team, including senior director of EV charging Rebecca Tinucci, a move that was criticized by Tesla’s investors and partners.
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