Shareholder Showdown: Norway’s $1 Trillion Wealth Fund Votes NO on Elon Musk’s Record Tesla Pay Deal

he debate over corporate pay has reached an unprecedented scale, as Norway’s massive sovereign wealth fund—one of Tesla’s largest investors—announced it will vote against CEO Elon Musk‘s new compensation package. The controversial award could be worth up to $1 trillion over the next decade, making it the largest executive compensation plan in history.

The fund, officially known as Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), currently holds a significant stake in the electric vehicle giant. In its statement, the Norway wealth fund was clear: while it acknowledges the “significant value created under Mr. Musk’s visionary role,” it remains seriously concerned about three key issues.

First, the total size of the award is considered excessive. Second is the risk of shareholder dilution from issuing such a massive tranche of new shares. And finally, the fund worries about the “lack of mitigation of key person risk,” suggesting the company’s dependency on Musk is too high.

This institutional opposition comes just days before the crucial shareholder vote at Tesla’s annual meeting on Thursday, November 6th.

The proposed deal offers Musk a path to earn the full value by meeting extremely ambitious performance targets, including boosting Tesla’s market capitalization to a staggering $8.5 trillion and achieving milestones in vehicle production and new ventures like humanoid robotics. Tesla’s board has defended the plan, warning that rejecting it risks losing Musk’s leadership, which they call essential for future growth.

However, NBIM is not alone in its stance. Influential proxy advisory firms ISS and Glass Lewis have also urged investors to reject the deal. This Tesla pay package vote is now a key test of how much shareholders are willing to reward a transformational CEO versus maintaining traditional standards of corporate governance.