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Norwegian Wealth Fund Voted to Block Musk's $2.6 Billion Award

The Norwegian fund held 0.48 percent of Tesla’s stock at the end of 2017.

Norwegian Wealth Fund Voted to Block Musk's $2.6 Billion Award
Signage is displayed at the entrance of the new Tesla Inc. showroom in New York, U.S. (Photographer: Mark Kauzlarich/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Norway’s $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund voted against granting Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk stock options valued at $2.6 billion.

The world’s biggest wealth fund was in the minority, as other investors at Wednesday’s special meeting in Fremont, California, supported the performance award. The Norwegian fund held 0.48 percent of Tesla’s stock at the end of 2017.

The fund’s CEO, Yngve Slyngstad, has recently steered the fund toward a more activist role in its equity holdings to focus on preventing excessive executive pay.

The award won’t vest unless a set of ambitious financial goals is met. The proposal was backed by some large Tesla investors who said it would help Musk drive the company forward, while critics said it was too generous.

The award may go down as the largest compensation deal in history, and is pegged on plans to turn Tesla into one of the world’s largest companies as it ventures beyond solar panels and electric cars. If successful, the payment could end up being worth more than $50 billion and may entice Musk to stick with the company for at least another decade.

Musk is also the CEO of Mars-bound Space Exploration Technologies Corp. His other projects include tunnel digger Boring Co. and a brain-computer interface startup called Neuralink.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jonas Bergman in Oslo at jbergman@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tasneem Hanfi Brögger at tbrogger@bloomberg.net.

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.