Tesla chief Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has managed to bulldoze the Austin-based automaker’s board and now shareholders into approving a record-breaking pay package that could be worth up to $1 trillion. The unprecedented payout was cleared by three-fourth of total votes at the firm’s annual general meeting in Texas Thursday evening.

While the scale of the potential payout has drawn widespread criticism, the Tesla board’s counterargument has been that Musk might leave the company if it was not cleared – and that Tesla could not afford to lose him. And that goes on to highlight yet another growing trend that is symptomatic now of multiple big businesses on Wall Street: ‘the key man risk’. Some business owners see the company’s reliance on them as a badge of honour, and Musk is clea

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