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Tesla has asked shareholders to vote again on Elon Musk's mammoth $47 billion pay package months after it was voided in court

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Grzegorz Wajda/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images; Chelsea Jia Feng/BI
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Tesla has asked shareholders to vote again on Elon Musk's enormous pay package, which was previously overturned by a court.

The carmaker announced its plans for another vote in a proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday.

"Because the Delaware Court second-guessed your decision, Elon has not been paid for any of his work for Tesla for the past six years that has helped to generate significant growth and stockholder value," the proxy statement reads.

It adds: "That strikes us — and the many stockholders from whom we already have heard — as fundamentally unfair, and inconsistent with the will of the stockholders who voted for it."

Tesla said that when 73% of shareholders voted for the pay package in 2018, it was a "big risk" targeting "unprecedented growth."

But in January, a Delaware judge sided with a Tesla shareholder who argued in a lawsuit that Musk's pay package was excessive.

The compensation involved Musk receiving stock options based on financial targets. It played a major role in the Tesla CEO's rise to becoming the world's richest person. He's now ranked third on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, behind Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos, and the luxury tycoon Bernard Arnault.

When the package was voided in court, it was worth $55 billion — but The New York Times reports it's now valued at $47 billion.

The second shareholder vote is set to occur at the firm's annual meeting in June, according to the proxy filing.

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Pete Syme
Pete Syme is an aviation reporter for Business Insider, based in London.He writes about all things related to the industry, from aviation safety and CEO interviews to route reveals and airplane tours. Pete also uses data for industry analyses and to visualize breaking news events.Before joining Business Insider in 2022, he graduated with an MA in Newspaper Journalism from City, University of London, and a BA in English from the University of Exeter.