Originally published in Svenska Dagbladet by Björn Jeffery, November 6, 2025

A pay package of around 9,500 billion kronor. That is what Tesla’s board wants to give Elon Musk. But it is not all about the money — the board warns that Musk may leave if it does not go through. Today the question is decided.

For a couple of years, there was no hotter abbreviation on the fund market than “ESG.” The idea was to give savers the opportunity to invest in environmentally friendly and ethical funds with a clear conscience.

The abbreviation stands for “Environmental, Social and Governance,” but in all essential respects it came to be primarily about the E — environmental issues. The least exciting component — G, meaning corporate governance — received considerably less attention. And it would take Tesla’s board proposing to pay Elon Musk up to 9,500 billion kronor for anyone to start paying attention.

The question of Musk’s pay has long been a sensitive one. His previous pay package of 55 billion dollars became stuck in the American state of Delaware. Despite moving the company to the more Republican and business-friendly state of Texas, you cannot as a company and board simply do whatever you like. Today shareholders are therefore gathered to vote on the board’s proposed pay for Elon Musk in the coming years.

In simplified terms, there are two camps. The first believes that Tesla cannot manage without Elon Musk, and that the pay only kicks in if Tesla’s performance is extraordinarily strong. The promised targets are divided into twelve separate parts, and one example is that the company needs to increase its pre-tax earnings from 17 billion dollars to 400 billion dollars. If Tesla were to achieve that — an extraordinarily rare feat — who cares what the CEO gets paid? In such a scenario, every shareholder would also become enormously wealthy.

The second camp is the one that dwells more on the G in ESG. They believe the pay package is completely unreasonable regardless of what Musk achieves. The fact that the package is many times larger than the highest ever awarded sends the wrong signal about how seriously the company takes questions of corporate governance.

The third camp, if one wishes to call it that, is Elon Musk himself. On X he wrote that “Control of Tesla could influence the future of civilisation.” There is inspiration to be found here for anyone planning a salary negotiation in the near future.

The central question is whether Tesla and Elon Musk are, in all essential respects, the same thing. Board chair Robyn Denholm warns that Musk could resign from the company if the pay is not voted through, and what would that do to shareholder value? Denholm has a point if you look back at Tesla’s development up to today. The company is currently valued at four times more than Toyota — a position they would likely not have reached without Elon Musk.

At the same time, Denholm’s job is not to look after Elon Musk, but to look after Tesla and its shareholders — of whom Musk is the largest. Is the dependence on a single individual — who moreover has many other commitments alongside Tesla — healthy in the long term?

You do not need to assume bad intentions on Musk’s part to see the risks. Should he be struck by an accident, illness, or something similar, the consequences could be devastating. Losing a CEO is never good for a company, of course, but it is reasonable to assume that Tesla would lose considerably more than average if something of that kind were to happen. Building a more resilient leadership that is less dependent on one individual could be one way of managing such a risk.

The outcome of this evening’s vote is not a foregone conclusion. Tesla has run several promotional films encouraging shareholders to vote the pay through. At the same time, several owners — including the Norwegian oil fund with a one percent stake, and local parties such as Swedish Afa Försäkring — have publicly come out against the proposal. The stage is set for bad feeling whichever way it goes.

The moment could hardly be more sensitive. Tesla faces a major transition with investments in AI, robots, and self-driving cars. At the same time, Elon Musk has become politically active and has driven away many car buyers, particularly in Europe.

In the middle of all this, the board wants to offer its CEO 9,500 billion kronor. And once again, a vote — which ought to be about how to run a listed car company — will instead be about the individual Elon Musk. And with him, as is well known, anything can happen.