Lawyers in Elon Musk pay case want a $6 billion fee

WILMINGTON: The lawyers who voided Elon Musk's $56 billion compensation as excessive are seeking a record legal fee worth $6 billion, payable in the electric car maker's stock, according to a Friday court filing.

"We recognise that the requested fee is unprecedented in terms of absolute size," said the filing with the Court of Chancery in Delaware by the three law firms. The fee works out to an hourly rate of $288,888, according to the court filing. The fee will be paid by Tesla to attorneys who represented Richard Tornetta, a Tesla shareholder who sued Musk in 2018 over the pay package, which a Delaware judge nixed in January. The electric vehicle maker is being asked to pay the fee because it benefited from the return of Musk's pay package, which the legal team said will result in the return to the carmaker of 266 million shares.

The fee request must be approved by Kathaleen McCormick, the judge overseeing the case. She called Musk's pay "unfathomable" in her ruling. Tesla, Musk's attorney and Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company may object to the fee, as it has a fee request in a similar case over the pay for its directors.


"This structure has the benefit of linking the award directly to the benefit created and avoids taking even one cent from the Tesla balance sheet to pay fees," said the shareholder legal team, noting the fee is also tax-deductible to Tesla.