Over the weekend, Musk was sarcastic on the X platform, citing a tweet and commenting that lawyers who had achieved nothing other than destroying Tesla demanded a compensation of $6 billion, which was a crime.
This incident occurred a month ago when a team of lawyers representing Tesla shareholder Richard Tornetta filed a lawsuit against Musk, demanding the return of the high compensation package promised by the company's board of directors in 2018. The shareholder believes that the $56 billion salary package far exceeds industry standards and is the largest salary package ever offered by a US listed company to a CEO.
The Delaware judge in the United States ultimately ruled that Musk's compensation package was invalid because Musk had a close relationship with the directors who approved the transaction and did not fully disclose his relationship to shareholders.
Musk ultimately criticized the case and its verdict, and even expressed his desire to relocate Tesla headquarters from Delaware.
The lawyers representing Tornetta in winning this lawsuit are demanding $6 billion in litigation fees, which is the latest plot of this incident. The three law firms involved in the joint lawsuit also acknowledge that in terms of the absolute scale of litigation costs, the lawyer fees they are requesting are unprecedented.
Amazing lawyer fees
Lawyers point out that the hourly cost of this case is as high as $288888. But they believe that the lawyer's fee linked to the litigation amount can clearly incentivize work, and this lawyer's fee can be tax-free for Tesla.
But Tesla may refuse to pay this fee, especially since it has been asked not to pay the Musk compensation package. In the same context, perhaps other shareholders may also raise objections due to the fact that this lawyer fee far exceeds the industry average.
At the same time, some have pointed out that as the scale of arbitration and litigation expands, the fees charged by lawyers should increase in a decreasing manner to avoid the phenomenon of exaggerating the scale of litigation and leading to excessive compensation.
Musk's legal team casually stated that the lawyer's fees demanded by the opposing lawyer accounted for about 11% of Musk's compensation package.
And it is widely expected that Musk will appeal this case and may transfer Tesla's company registration from Delaware to Texas.