The lawsuit that stripped Elon Musk of Tesla’s record-breaking $56 billion in compensation was led by a shareholder who played drums in a heavy metal band.
Five years after Tesla shareholder Richard Tornetta filed suit against Musk on behalf of Tesla as part of a shareholder derivative suit, Kathleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery ruled that Musk’s compensation was The court determined that the amount was an “incalculable amount” that was unfair to shareholders.
Tornetta — who was behind the drum kit for the Philadelphia-based thrash band Dawn of Collection — was the only shareholder plaintiff named in the lawsuit, which was filed in 2018. According to the Wall Street Journal.
Tornetta, who also names several Tesla directors in the suit, is said to have held just nine shares of the electric car maker’s stock at the time of the complaint, but has not held any of the shares since the group was formed in 2005. It served as the skin for Dawn of Collection until it split in 2007. .
In the past two years, the group released a studio album, Dead Hand Control, and performed at the 2006 Metal Fest. According to an interview with Tornetta Posted on MetalUnderground.com on Walk Up to a Music Festival.
According to Tornetta’s profile on F6S — a network that connects startups with funding opportunities — he then worked in the marketing department of Homecast, an online real estate marketing service.
He describes himself at F6S as a “marketer, inventor, custom fabricator, car enthusiast, family businessman, and drummer” who “designed an illuminated headpiece for on-stage drumming.” It was advertised as “and produced.”
“This is a fancy way of saying I made a mohawk that lights up when you play the drums,” Tornetta wrote, adding that his work included “32 tricolor LEDs, a resistive heat sink panel, It has a 1-foot long 5500K IP67 LED strip,” he boasted. , a 16-pin Molex tether with hand-woven leads, a custom-molded epoxy-coated fiberglass helmet, and a portable control box with four of his DMX controllers, a strobe module, and a 12VDC power supply.
Tornetta’s F6S profile also states that he earned a degree in industrial design from Philadelphia University.
Did Mr. Tornetta sell the nine Tesla shares he owned when he first filed his lawsuit against the company, or did he buy up more shares in the EV company whose stock price has risen nearly 800% in five years? It is unknown. Since Tornetta filed the complaint.
The outcome of the lawsuit left a significant portion of Musk’s fortune in limbo.
Musk is currently the richest person in the world with a net worth of $202 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, much of which is thanks to the 52-year-old’s Tesla stock.
Mr. Tornetta’s lead attorney, Greg Ballaro of the New York-based law firm Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossman, told the Journal of the board’s decision to give Mr. Musk the largest compensation in corporate America. said the following: ”
“Overwhelmed by the ‘everything is better’ rhetoric, or perhaps dazzled by Mr. Musk’s superstar appeal, the board never asked the $55.8 billion question. Was the plan really necessary to achieve the goal?” McCormick wrote in his decision.
“Good day to good people,” Vararo said in an email to the Post shortly after McCormick ruled in Tornetta’s favor.
The newspaper asked Mr. Tornetta and Mr. Ballaro for comment on Thursday.
Vararo, 64, who heads the company’s Delaware office, joined the lawsuit in 2021 before the trial began in 2022, according to the Journal.
At the time, Tornetta had just survived a motion to remove him from Tesla’s board of directors, the Journal reported.
In a 201-page opinion, McCormick said Musk’s compensation plan “appears to be tailored to help him accomplish what he believed would create a ‘good future for humanity.'” The decision may be appealed to the Delaware Supreme Court.
“Never incorporate a company in Delaware,” Musk said in a post on social media platform X, which he acquired in 2022.
The company’s original name was Twitter, but Musk, who also serves as CEO of SpaceX, moved its state of incorporation from Delaware to Nevada after the acquisition.
