Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, a top-tier investor in Tesla, has branded Elon Musk’s proposed $1 trillion pay package as “concerning” and confirmed it will vote against it.
The fund, which manages over a trillion dollars in assets and holds a $17 billion stake in Tesla, appreciated Musk’s “visionary role” but said the award’s “total size” was unjustifiable. It also raised flags about shareholder dilution and “key person risk.”
This sets the stage for a dramatic shareholder meeting on Thursday. The vote is on an incentive package that could push Musk’s personal wealth beyond $2 trillion if he achieves ambitious valuation targets for Tesla over the next decade.
Tesla’s chair, Robyn Denholm, has defended the package as the only way to ensure Musk’s continued leadership. She has argued that without him, Tesla faces a “significant value” loss, a sentiment Musk himself echoed on X, asking which other auto CEO could run the company.
This dissent comes as Tesla’s sales performance weakens. The company has seen sales fall across much of Europe and in China, and its global deliveries dropped 13% in the first half of the year, adding fuel to the critics’ arguments against the massive payout.