Robyn Denholm is back on the road doing what Tesla hired her to do: convince people that Elon Musk deserves to be paid a more and more money. According to reporting from The Wall Street Journal, Robyn has already launched her pitch ahead of the November 6 shareholder vote, where Tesla is asking investors to approve a new $1 trillion compensation package for Elon. The goal? Get him to stay locked in for another ten years. The problem? Sales are down, investors are tired, and Tesla’s growth story looks shakier than ever. Robyn, who’s chaired Tesla’s board since 2018, has started doing interviews and meeting with big institutional shareholders. This is her second time doing this in under two years. She’s trying to push through a huge payday for Elon, again, with the not-so-subtle message that he could walk if he doesn’t get it. Robyn leans on investor fears as Tesla’s delivery numbers fall Robyn is selling this new package at a rough time. Tesla’s vehicle deliveries are down for the year. Its first all-new model in years, the Cybertruck, launched in 2023 and underdelivered. The company’s long-promised robotaxi tech finally showed up in June, but only as a small rollout in Austin, Texas, after almost ten years of yapping . And investors are still waiting for results. There’s also the mess from the 2018 pay plan. That $50 billion deal got thrown out by a Delaware judge, and now it’s tied up in court. Robyn admitted that shareholders are tired of hearing about it. Still, she claims this new plan is exactly what investors have been asking for. “I was getting a lot of questions from shareholders about what does the future look like, for Elon and the company,” Robyn said . In 2016, she led the push to get Tesla investors to approve the SolarCity acquisition, Elon’s other company, which many saw as a bailout. She’s clearly used to fighting these battles. And she’s still defending the 2018 pay package. Even after the judge slammed her for “lackadaisical” oversight, Robyn dismissed that criticism. “Crap,” she told a reporter. Her 95-year-old mother didn’t appreciate the language. But Robyn insists she’s doing her job. “I know that I work for the shareholders,” she said. She says her role is about managing both Elon and the board while keeping shareholder interests in the middle. And so far, the board seems fine with how she’s doing it. Tesla’s market value hit $1 trillion while Robyn’s been chair. She credits Elon’s previous pay package for pushing him to perform. But at most companies, the CEO doesn’t get this kind of freedom. Elon runs multiple businesses. He’s on social media constantly. He’s in politics. And he still has more control than most public company CEOs. Board committee writes new plan as Elon threatens to walk Last June, when shareholders reapproved the old pay plan, Elon jumped up and down on stage like it was his birthday. A few weeks later, he moved his focus to President Trump’s reelection campaign and moved to Washington. Investors started begging him to focus on Tesla again. Then in December, the same Delaware judge threw out the plan… again. By January, Tesla’s board had formed a special committee to come up with a solution. Robyn was in that group. The goal was to wrap up the mess around the 2018 deal and come up with something new. But Elon didn’t show up empty-handed. Tesla says he warned the board that he “may pursue other interests and leave Tesla” if he didn’t get what he wanted: full payment of the old package, at least 25% voting control, and no restrictions on his other ventures. The board had some requests, too. They wanted him to wind down his political side quests. That eventually happened, after Elon’s relationship with Trump’s White House soured publicly. “I’m not sure that he would say today that his stint in Washington was fabulous,” Robyn said. “I don’t think it was fabulous for the company, either.” Still, she says the board wants as much of his “time, energy and focus” as they can get. But the new plan doesn’t include any rules about how many hours he needs to work. Robyn says time doesn’t matter. “It’s not time that I measure,” she said, “it’s output.” If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter .
