The Delaware Supreme Court has reinstated Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package

The Delaware Supreme Court reinstated Elon Musk’s $56 billion Tesla pay package from 2018, overturning last year’s ruling by the state’s Chancery Court, according to an opinion published Friday.

In a unanimous ruling, the justices of Delaware’s highest court said that reversing Musk’s firing left him “without compensation for his time and efforts over six years.” Adjusted for Tesla’s current stock price, which hit an all-time high this week, the value of the returned package would be about $140 billion, according to Bloomberg.

The state Supreme Court’s decision likely ended a years-long battle that left such a bad taste in Musk’s mouth that he moved Tesla’s founding from Delaware to Texas, prompting other companies to follow suit.

“Justified,” Musk posted on X on Friday in response to the news. “Thank you for your unwavering support,” replied Alexandra Merz, a prominent contributor known as “TeslaBoomerMama.”

Tesla is now likely to cancel the $29 billion pay package it offered Musk earlier this year, which was supposed to serve as a hedge against the company potentially losing its Delaware Supreme Court appeal. The $1 trillion compensation package awarded to Musk in November is separate from that, and will continue to exist going forward, giving Musk a series of lofty goals to achieve in order to unlock full value.

The 2018 award also identified a number of milestones that Musk needed to achieve in order to unlock full value. Musk and Tesla achieved all of those goals, but not before a shareholder filed a lawsuit over the award in 2018, arguing that it was improperly negotiated and that shareholders were not properly informed of conflicts of interest.

Musk and many Tesla supporters denounced the lawsuit as ridiculous, particularly the fact that the plaintiff — a former company defense attorney and heavy metal drummer named Richard Tornetta — owned only nine shares of the company’s stock.

After years of back and forth, including a trial in which Musk testified, the Chancery Court judge overseeing the case agreed with the plaintiff and initially threw out the pay package in January 2024. Tesla held a vote at its annual meeting in 2024 in which shareholders “re-approved” the package, but the judge affirmed her decision in December 2024. Tesla appealed soon after.