I read everything linked in the story that doesn’t have a paywall (WSJ stuff, though I read the couple of paragraphs on that until the paywall intruded). There is not much in the reports or readable links, especially about what the judge based her ruling on (although that’s likely out there in the internet ether, if I cared enough to search for it).
It’s a simple pay-jealousy (”pay-inequity”) story. The ex-musician doesn’t think the CEO should be paid so very much more than other workers, at least not so very much more than middle and upper management types, and the ex-musician sought to enforce his belief and deny Musk the earned income bonus with the argument that the excessive pay agreement was not in the interest of shareholders and thus the board failed in its duty to protect the shareholders and thus the bonus should be canceled.
The ex-musician argued that the board didn’t study the issue well enough to recognize that Musk would very easily make his benchmark to earn the bonus, that Musk negotiated/wrote the agreement himself, and that Musk knew/was friends with board members (and has a brother on the board) and thus it was cronyism that got the deal passed and it wasn’t really a negotiated agreement with shareholders’ interests considered.
The judge seems to have canceled the pay contract, at least the bonus clause, and ordered them to negotiate a new contract, at least the bonus part. The board could just look at all the available data and arguments and agree anew to the old figure, or a lower one, or a higher one.
That’s what I got out of it, and no trudging, or mud slinging, needed.
Thanks. Simple and to the point. Appreciate that.
By the way, you can often find WSJ articles on other sites without paywalls. Copy and paste the full title into a search engine.
There’s also a good extension for Chrome-based browsers called “Bypass Paywalls.” It works well for me.
https://www.ghacks.net/2022/09/05/bypass-paywalls-clean-browser-extension-review/