Take Back Tesla urges shareholders to reject Musk $1 trillion pay plan

one day before Tesla’s A coalition of unions and corporate watchdogs wants investors to focus their attention on governance issues, according to the quarterly earnings report.

On Tuesday, a group including the American Federation of Teachers and Public Citizens launched a campaign. Take Back Tesla websitea campaign urging shareholders to vote against a new pay package for CEO Elon Musk that would give him nearly $1 trillion worth of shares and expand his control over the company.

Tesla’s board made its pay proposal public in September, saying the largest-ever CEO pay plan was appropriate and necessary to keep Musk in for a decade. The plan will be put to a vote by shareholders at the company’s annual meeting next month.

On the Take Back Tesla website, the group calls the oversized package “ugly”; This is partly because Musk’s “political activities have damaged Tesla’s brand and alienated him from leadership at Tesla.” The site says the plan does not require Musk to focus more on the automaker than his political interests or other business endeavors.

The site also encourages the general population to petition state treasurers and other fiscal officials who oversee funds on behalf of workers and retirees to reject the plan. The coalition plans to share materials online teaching investors how to vote for their shares or influence fund managers who vote on their behalf.

“Public pension funds are significant shareholders of Tesla, and the assets of asset managers investing in these funds are even larger,” the site says. “This is our money, and we need to tell the people who invested for us that we want them to vote to hold Musk and the Tesla Board members accountable.”

Other groups in the coalition include Americans for Financial Reform, Communications Workers of America, corporate watchdog group Ekō, Public Action, and Stop the Money Pipeline.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Leading proxy firms ISS and Glass Lewis recommended disallowing Musk’s $1 trillion pay plan, which was announced amid a tense fight over his previous 2018 pay package, which had about $56 billion in stock when handed over.

Following these companies’ suggestions, Tesla wrote: to mail “ISS and Glass Lewis have repeatedly recommended against Tesla’s proposals since the introduction of the 2018 CEO Performance Award.” The company added that selling shareholders “will have missed out on our market capitalization, which increased 20-fold from March 2018 to August 2025.”

The Delaware Court of Chancery ruled early last year that the 2018 plan was improperly adopted by Tesla; The judge found that the company hid key details from shareholders and that Musk controlled board members rather than negotiate with them for a fair deal.

Musk appealed the issue to the Delaware State Supreme Court and is pushing to have the 2018 CEO pay package reinstated.

In January 2024, when this plan was canceled, Musk wrote “I’m uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI and robotics without having ~25% voting control,” wrote X on his social network. The new plan will increase its shares by 12% over the next decade.

Musk founded the artificial intelligence initiative xAI in March 2023, taking some former Tesla employees with him, and was developing Grok, which could rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

As of May 2025, Musk said he is committed to running Tesla for at least another five years.

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who oversees a $300 billion pension fund, said he “strongly opposes this compensation package” and that other public trustees should do the same.

“We held Tesla stock most of the time, it was a solid investment, it grew over time, and so we didn’t choose to divest it,” Lander, who also serves as the city’s finance and liability chief, said in an interview. Lander said he preferred to “stick with it and engage in shareholder engagement to address our concerns.”

Lander manages funds that own Tesla worth about $1.1 billion, according to assets reported in August.

He said he viewed Tesla’s board as “sufficiently independent” and that Musk was allowed to be “CEO in absence.” Lander said that the company could not achieve its goal in robotaxi and autonomous driving technology.

The stock has rebounded recently after a brutal start to the year, but is still underperforming its tech peers, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq in 2025.

Lander said Musk “has been an inconsistent CEO at best” and “his pay package resembles a ransom attempt with erratic stock performance and destruction of consumer confidence.”

Tesla is scheduled to report third-quarter results after the close of regular trading on Wednesday. Analysts expect revenue to rise 4.7% year-over-year to $26.37 billion, according to LSEG, following two consecutive year-over-year declines.

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