The head of a major pension fund said on Monday that he will vote against Elon Musk’s pay package later this week.
California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) chief investment officer Christopher Ailman said in an interview with CNBC that the fund will oppose Musk’s pay package, describing it as “ridiculous.”
CalSTRS holds nearly 4.7 million shares of Tesla Inc. as of June 2023, according to your website.
“We will pay him 140 times the average worker’s salary. How about this deal? I think that’s more than fair,” Ailman said on the CNBC show. “Shout in the street.”
He also noted that CalSTRS voted against a previous pay package for Musk, which a judge ruled the tech billionaire was not entitled to earlier this year. The vote, scheduled for this week, would reinstate the 2018 salary package annulled by the judge.
At least two shareholder advisory firms recommended voting against the package, according to the Associated Press.
The AP noted that the package was recently valued by the company at about $44.9 billion.
In his interview on Monday, Ailman asked Musk to focus on just one of his numerous ventures. Musk owns the social platform X and the aerospace company SpaceX, in addition to Tesla.
“This is a company that hasn’t grown in the last two years and is barely making money on a car,” Ailman said. “He needs to focus on cars on X or going to Mars. And I think his heart really lies in going to Mars and getting off the planet.”
He added that he would “hate” to see Musk move away from Tesla.
“He is brilliant. I admire him. I heard him recently at the Milken conference. Incredible speaker,” he said. “But we are going to run this company. It is a car manufacturer; Let’s get back to making cars and doing it well. He can run SpaceX and its other efforts and see how they do. He is focused on Starlink.”
“He has a million balls in the air. Focus on a few,” he added.
The Hill has reached out to Tesla for comment.
The Associated Press contributed.
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