A thrash metal drummer has cost Twitter/Tesla supervillain Elon Musk an incredible $56 billion USD, as Dawn of Correction timekeeper Richard Tornetta successfully blocked Musk from receiving his $56 billion pay package from Tesla.
Musk received the pay package back in 2018, which was awarded by the Tesla board for meeting performance goals. Tornetta sued in 2022 — not to get any of the money, but rather to claim that board members weren't acting in good faith, and weren't meeting their responsibility to shareholders.
Tornetta owns just nine shares in Tesla, but a Delaware court still sided with him, ruling that Musk had ties with the board that influenced the decision to grant him the money.
Chancery Court Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick said of her decision, "Neither the Compensation Committee nor the Board acted in the best interests of the Company when negotiating Musk's compensation plan. In fact, there is barely any evidence of negotiations at all. Rather than negotiate against Musk with the mindset of a third party, the Compensation Committee worked alongside him, almost as an advisory body."
The financial loss was such that Musk is no longer the world’s richest person. As of this writing, he is now worth $194.5 billion compared to the $212.1 billion of Louis Vuitton head Bernard Arnault and his family, according to Forbes.
Dawn of Correction were a thrash metal band who, according to the webzine Spirit of Metal, were together from 2005 to 2009. As loud as their music was, this is surely the heaviest blow Tornetta has ever dealt.
