Tesla CEO and Twitter owner, Elon Musk, is set to square off in court against a drummer, who has sued the billionaire. Heavy metal drummer Richard Tornetta, a Tesla shareholder, had filed a lawsuit against Musk in 2018 after taking offence at the world's richest man taking a $56 billion pay package at Tesla, the electric car company he became CEO of in 2008.
The trial will pit Musk against one of the electric carmaker's smallest investors, Richard Tornetta, who held just nine shares when he sued in 2018.
Tornetta's lawsuit alleges that Musk dictated the pay package's terms to a board of directors, and it was then put to a vote of shareholders who were misled about the difficulty of reaching certain targets.
The compensation plan, which was based on corporate performance goals, was unfair because the goals were excessively low, allowing Musk to collect billions despite only working a "part-time executive," according to the lawsuit.
According to Reuters, the pay package was heavily criticised, and CalSTRS, the state of California's teachers retirement system, was one of the investors that voted against it.
In court documents, Musk and the directors claim that the package helped Musk stay focused on Tesla at a trying time and caused the stock price to increase by ten times.
If the lawsuit is successful, Musk will lose his $56 billion salary through stock awards, which will instead benefit Tesla and not Tornetta.
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