Unions Urge Pension Funds to Downvote Musk’s Pay in New Campaign

A coalition of labor unions is fighting Tesla’s proposed $1 trillion pay package for Elon Musk, calling for public pressure on pension funds and other major shareholders to vote against it.

The pressure campaign announced Wednesday comes ahead of a Nov. 6 shareholder vote on the Tesla Inc. board of directors’ proposal, which could yield Musk the full sum over 10 years, if the company meets certain performance metrics under his leadership.

The labor coalition, which also includes advocacy groups such as Public Citizen, said the pay package will sap shareholder value away from workers whose retirement savings is invested in Tesla.

The proposal also could push Musk’s ownership stake in the automaker to 25%.

“Tesla shareholders can either check Musk’s corporate power grab, or vote to grant him more and more power,” said Natalia Renta, associate director of corporate governance and power at the Americans for Financial Reform, also part of the coalition.

Musk played a key role in the first few months of President Donald Trump’s second administration, heading up the Department of Government Efficiency tasked with identifying ways to cut government spending and lay off federal workers.

“To reward this destructive behavior with an obscene salary is a slap in the face—not only to the federal workers he’s fired, but to the retirees whose pensions are invested in Tesla stock,” said American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.

The unions involved in the effort are the AFT and the Communications Workers of America. They urged the public to visit a website that enables easily sending messages to state pension funds and retirement fund operators including Fidelity and Vanguard to urge them to vote no.

Two proxy advisory firms, Glass Lewis & Co. and Institutional Shareholder Services, also recently urged shareholders to vote against the Tesla proposal.

A smaller, but still record-setting pay package that the Tesla board approved in 2018 remains tied up in litigation after a Delaware judge last year rejected it, finding the board was too conflicted and Musk held too much control for the vote to fairly reflect shareholder opinion.

Tesla’s board designed the latest pay package to give Musk incentive to focus his energies on running the automaker for the next decade.

The company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

An affiliate of the CWA, the Washington-Baltimore News Guild, represents employees at Bloomberg Industry Group.