Is the Tesla board in charge of a public company or the Elon

If Musk is awarded an astronomic $56bn pay award for a second time, it will amount to an astonishing lack of self-reflection

One reasonable view of the great Elon Musk pay affair says Tesla shareholders should stick to their guns and approve the astronomic $56bn award for a second time, thereby sending a message to the interfering Delaware judge who cancelled the 2018 scheme that they’re quite capable of making up their own minds, thanks very much.

That, roughly speaking, is the stance of Baillie Gifford, a big investor in the electric vehicle company since the early days. “We agreed the remuneration package with Tesla back in 2018 because it introduced extremely stretching targets that would make a huge amount of money for shareholders if they were reached,” Tom Slater, manager of the FTSE 100 Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, told the Financial Times last month. “Having agreed to that, we believe that it should be paid out.” Fair enough, the line has the virtue of consistency: we understood what we were voting for, and a deal’s a deal.