AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. CEO Adam Aron’s compensation package increased to $25.4 million in 2023, from $23.7 million in 2022 and $18.9 million in 2021, according to a proxy statement filed with the SEC Friday.
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U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris meet with (L-R) Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), on February 27, 2024 at the White House in Washington, DC.
Roberto Schmidt | Getty Images
President Joe Biden on Saturday signed Congress’ $1.2 trillion spending package, finalizing the remaining batch of bills in a long-awaited budget to keep the government funded until Oct. 1.
Almost halfway into the fiscal year, the president’s signature ends a months-long saga of Congress struggling to secure a permanent budget resolution and instead passing stopgap measures, nearly averting government shutdowns.
“The bipartisan funding bill I just signed keeps the government open, invests in the American people, and strengthens our economy and national security,” Biden said in a Saturday statement. “This agreement represents a compromise, which means neither side got everything it wanted.”
The weekend budget deal slid in just under the wire before the Friday midnight funding deadline, as has been typical this fiscal year with eleventh-hour disagreements derailing near-complete deals.
The Senate passed the budget in a 74-24 vote at roughly 2 a.m. ET Saturday morning, technically two hours after the deadline due to last-minute disagreements. However, the White House said that it would not begin official shutdown operations since a deal had ultimately been secured and only procedural actions remained.
The House passed its own vote Friday morning after a week of scrambling to reconcile a lingering sticking point: funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which the White House took issue with last weekend. The White House’s qualms delayed the negotiation process further, just as lawmakers were preparing to release the legislative text of the budget proposal.
This trillion-dollar tranche of six appropriation bills will fund agencies related to defense, financial services, homeland security, health and human services and more. Congress approved $459 billion for the first six appropriations bills earlier in March, which related to agencies that were less partisan and easier to negotiate.
With the government finally funded for the rest of the fiscal year, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has cleared his plate of at least one looming issue.
But in so doing, he may have created another.
Hours before the House passed the spending package Friday morning, hardline House Republicans held a press conference to lambast the bill. Moments after the House narrowly passed the bill, far-right Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to oust Johnson.
If ousting a House speaker for budget disagreements feels like a familiar story, that’s because it is.
In October, after former Speaker Kevin McCarthy struck a deal with Democrats to avert a government shutdown, the House voted to remove him, making him the first Speaker in history to be removed from that position. Johnson has been trying to appease the hardline Republican wing of the House, called the Freedom Caucus, to avoid meeting a similar fate.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and X, speaks at the Atreju political convention organized by Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy), in Rome, Dec. 15, 2023.
Antonio Masiello | Getty Images
Two weeks after a Delaware court ruled that Tesla must rescind Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package, the company’s board remains mum on what the decision means for shareholders or what’s next for the mercurial CEO.
In her 200-page opinion on Jan. 30, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick called the pay plan the largest in public corporate history, and said it was agreed upon by people “who were beholden to Musk.” Since then, Musk has lashed out at the court, posted “Never incorporate your company in the state of Delaware” on his social media platform X, and said Tesla would hold a shareholder vote to move its site of incorporation to Texas.
Tesla hasn’t yet issued an SEC filing to notify shareholders of the ruling.
The decision came shortly after Musk indicated that he’s pushing for even more control of Tesla, posting on X in mid-January that he wanted roughly 25% voting control before turning the company into a leader in artificial intelligence and robotics. Musk is already building an AI company called xAI outside of Tesla.
The next step in the compensation case is an “implementing order” that will be hashed out between the court, Musk’s team and the lawyers representing shareholder Richard Tornetta, a former heavy metal drummer who was the plaintiff in the 2018 lawsuit filed on behalf of all Tesla investors.
As shareholders await answers, Tesla’s eight-person board, which includes Musk, his brother Kimbal, Chairwoman Robyn Denholm and former Tesla technology chief JB Straubel, has stayed silent, avoiding any public comments.
CNBC sent requests for additional information to Tesla investor relations, Musk and some board members. They all went unanswered.
Greg Varallo, who was lead counsel for Tornetta and is head of the Delaware office of Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann, told CNBC that theoretically Musk and his legal team could still pursue a last-minute settlement. While Varallo said he has no knowledge of Musk’s plans, he said he expects Musk to appeal the decision to the Delaware state Supreme Court.
“I’d give you very high odds on that,” Varallo said.
Kobi Kastiel, a law professor at Tel Aviv University, also predicts that Musk will appeal the ruling. Kastiel wasn’t involved in the litigation but he co-authored a 2023 paper in the Washington University Law Review titled “Superstar CEOs and Corporate Law” that was cited in McCormick’s ruling.
“Given the high stakes involved, it is likely that Tesla will appeal the decision,” Kastiel said in an email. In the absence of a successful appeal, “any new compensation arrangement with him will have to be assessed” in light of McCormick’s decision, Kastiel said.
‘Bunch of options would be returned’
In the 2018 CEO compensation plan, Tesla’s board awarded Musk a dozen tranches of stock options that would finish vesting in 2022 and were based on milestones, including many focused on stock price increases.
Between the beginning of 2018 and the end of 2022, Tesla shares soared almost 500% as Musk promised to turn Tesla into not just a dominant EV brand, but a robotaxi company and solar juggernaut, among other things. The S&P 500 gained 44% over that stretch, while the Nasdaq rose 52%.
Eric Talley, a professor at Columbia Law School, told CNBC that, should the ruling stand, Musk will lose his options but not any shares he previously held. The move would decrease the number of shares outstanding, potentially bolstering the value of each share held by investors.
“A bunch of options would be returned to Tesla’s coffers, which is hugely accretive to stock value,” said Talley, who wasn’t involved in the case. On the other hand, Talley pointed out, “Tesla has a very grumpy CEO who might want to take his ball and go home. Thus far, trading suggests those two factors have been a wash.”
Tesla shares are down slightly since the Delaware court’s decision in late January. They’re down close to 25% for the year, while major indexes are up.
Musk voiced a strong preference for moving his businesses out of Delaware following the court’s decision, and encouraged others to do so as well.
He moved the incorporation location for his brain computer interface company, Neuralink, from Delaware to Nevada, filings revealed last week. He’s also been a big proponent of Texas in recent years, personally relocating there from California, and building massive complexes for SpaceX and Tesla in the state, which has no personal income taxes and a much lower business tax rate.
Author Walter Isaacson, who published a 688-page biography on Musk last year, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday that if the ruling doesn’t get overturned, “it’s going to hurt Delaware.”
“People will say, ‘Wait, wait, you mean five years after something happens, eight years after something happens, you’ll go back and undo it?'” Isaacson said.
Tulane Law School professor Ann Lipton had a different take.
“It’s a very thorough opinion and the Supreme Court should give great deference to the factual findings of the trial court,” Lipton said.
In terms of what shareholders should ask of Tesla’s board now, Kastiel said, “Tornetta and recent media reports on Musk have emphasized the importance of accurate and detailed disclosure of the ties between controlling shareholders and directors.”
There’s a more fundamental concern at play, Kastiel said, regarding corporate governance in cases where a “superstar CEO” is running the show.
“As long as the CEO is perceived as a star and the company depends on the CEO’s vision and leadership, even nominally independent directors — those without strong ties to the CEO — will have difficulty monitoring the CEO’s conduct,” he said.
Kastiel also said that the decision likely makes Musk and Tesla more vulnerable to other types of lawsuits.
“Plaintiffs may have a better chance of advancing their claims by potentially leveraging the Tornetta findings to argue that the majority of the Tesla board is not independent of Musk,” he said. “To mitigate this risk, Tesla will need to significantly enhance the independence of its board and nominate new independent directors who do not have strong ties to Musk.”
WATCH: Elon Musk has a lot of ‘incoming missiles’ from all sides, says Isaacson
Just a week after Elon Musk’s $55 billion Tesla payday was struck down by a Delaware judge, a New York court dismissed a challenge to Apple CEO Tim Cook’s compensation package, which clocked in at under $100 million. Some coincidence.
At face value, the two cases seem to have a lot in common. Both were shareholder suits waged against some of the highest-paid superstar tech CEOs in the world. And both were filed amid a backdrop of increased public scrutiny over executive compensation in recent years, which is near all-time highs across S&P 500 companies.
But for all their similarities, from a legal standpoint the two cases are apples and oranges—and Cook was always going to stand a better chance of holding on to his paycheck.
Elon Musk’s $55 billion compensation package at Tesla made headlines last month after Delaware chancellor Kathaleen McCormick ruled in favor of a shareholder who argued that Tesla was paying its CEO an unfairly high amount with the moonshot grant. Plaintiff Richard Tornetta argued that because Musk wields so much power at Tesla and maintains close relationships with his board members, the supposedly independent board of directors’ vote approving his massive pay scheme was anything but.
“Chancellor McCormick found that the process for setting Elon Musk’s pay was essentially controlled by Elon Musk,” said Tulane University law professor Ann M. Lipton in an interview with Fortune. “The board didn’t engage in any kind of pushback or real bargaining.”
In response, Musk has threatened to relocate Tesla from Delaware (where almost 70% of Fortune 500 companies are incorporated) to Texas, where a more favorable political climate could leave him less exposed to these types of challenges.
While the Musk case was focused on a broad, more abstract legal question related to the Tesla board of directors’ degree of independence, the Cook case resolved yesterday was much simpler.
“The question before Delaware [in the Musk case] was simply, ‘Was the pay substantively unfair?’ whereas the question in the Tim Cook case was solely, ‘Was the proxy statement misleading?’” said Lipton.
The Teamsters’ pension fund sued Apple last year, arguing that the company had misled investors by misrepresenting Cook’s 2021 and 2022 pay in its proxy statements and paying him more than it had initially proposed.
Because Cook and other Apple executives are primarily paid in equity known as RSUs, the company enlists financial models to estimate what Cook’s actual pay will be for shareholders’ approval each year.
(For CEOs, being compensated primarily with stock isn’t uncommon. Mark Zuckerberg famously earns just $1 in annual salary, but he’s made billions through Meta stock grants included in his compensation package. The Economic Policy Institute found in a report last year that stock-related pay accounts for over 80% of CEO compensation.)
The pension fund that sued Cook argued that Apple misrepresented its CEO’s actual compensation package by downplaying the value of his equity. Cook and other Apple executives netted over $90 million in compensation for 2021 and 2022, higher than the $77.5 million estimate the company initially asked shareholders to vote on for approval.
(Both of those figures are well below Cook’s current annual compensation; at his own request, the Apple CEO took a 40% pay cut last year. That change was approved by shareholders and the Apple board’s compensation committee, which counts former Vice President Al Gore as one of its members.)
The plaintiffs claimed that Apple used an unusual financial model to artificially deflate Cook’s pay estimate, and also buried the compensation tables in a drab, gray section of the proxy statement, where shareholders would be less likely to notice it before casting their Say-on-Pay votes. The court didn’t buy it.
“What happened with Tim Cook is very common in public companies,” said Marc Hodak, partner at executive compensation consultancy Farient Advisors. “They award performance shares based on the face value of the stock. And each of those performance share units has a market value that’s higher than the face value stock at the time of grant.”
One key difference between the two cases was the size of the contested pay package. Musk’s $55 billion award from Tesla was part of the largest compensation plan in corporate history. While Cook’s $100 million annual pay is by no means a small sum, it’s on par with his peers. In fact, Apple uses a group of its competitors, including Meta, Netflix, Visa, and Cisco, to benchmark its executives’ compensation. (Notably, it added Tesla to that peer group last year.)
“I don’t have any question that the size and scale of [Musk’s] pay package was a driver, both in terms of the litigation and the decision that we saw,” said Hodak. “[$55 billion] is automatically going to attract an unusual amount of scrutiny.”
Taken together, these two cases do seem to hint at a broader trend toward greater scrutiny of bloated CEO pay—but Lipton advised against reading the tea leaves prematurely.
“Elon Musk is beating this drum that everyone should leave Delaware, to suggest that somehow this is a trend,” said Lipton. “I think this is an Elon Musk problem. That Tim Cook thing, it was a different law. It was a different argument.”
Representatives from Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
Solana (SOL) and its associated meme coin, Bonk (BONK), have witnessed remarkable surges in value, with SOL recording gains of over 71% and Bonk experiencing an astonishing 342% increase over the past 30 days.
The positive growth within the Solana ecosystem has resulted in a surge in demand for the flagship mobile device, Solana Saga. However, the Solana Mobile team recently addressed challenges in meeting the “overwhelming demand” and explained order cancellations and inventory management issues.
Solana Mobile Faces Inventory Mishap
Over the past month, SOL has seen a significant uptrend, inching closer to the $100 mark, a level not reached since April 2022. Additionally, Bonk has experienced an extraordinary surge reaching a trading value of $0.00001896.
Given these developments and the social buzz within the blockchain and its mobile device, the Solana Mobile team confirmed that their limited inventory of 20,000 devices worldwide has sold out, with both the US and EU markets experiencing high demand.
According to a recent statement on X (formerly Twitter), in the process of fulfilling orders, the Solana Mobile team encountered an “inventory management issue” with their third-party distributor. This issue resulted in an inaccurate representation of the available inventory.
Consequently, the team was unable to fulfill orders placed after the inventory was depleted. Additionally, orders suspected of suspicious activity, such as excessive device orders or payment risks, were flagged and subsequently canceled.
According to the announcement, the objective behind these measures is to ensure that as many users as possible can enjoy the Solana Saga mobile device.
Customers affected by the order cancellations have been promptly notified, and they will receive refunds within the coming days.
Solana’s DEX Volume Overtakes Ethereum And Arbitrum
The Solana ecosystem, together with its native token SOL, has recently achieved significant milestones. Notably, Solana’s 24-hour decentralized exchange (DEX) volume has exceeded that of Ethereum (ETH) and Arbitrum (ARB) combined, surpassing the $2 billion mark.
Additionally, Solana has emerged as the third-largest altcoin (only behind BNB) by market capitalization. These achievements reflect the growing popularity and success of Solana within the cryptocurrency market.
According to Token Terminal data, SOL’s market cap (circulating) stands at $41.05 billion, reflecting a remarkable increase of 46.98%, flipping XRP’s market cap by over $7 billion.
The revenue generated has also witnessed substantial growth, with an 80.43% increase to $2.39 million. Furthermore, SOL’s fully diluted market cap has reached $54.31 billion, showcasing a significant rise of 45.60%.
The revenue generated on the Solana platform, when annualized, amounts to an impressive $29.13 million, signifying a substantial increase of 94.75%.
Examining SOL’s financial ratios, the price-to-fully diluted ratio stands at 796.78x, indicating the market’s high expectations for future growth. However, this ratio has experienced a recent decrease of 19.3%.
Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView.com
Disclaimer: The article is provided for educational purposes only. It does not represent the opinions of NewsBTC on whether to buy, sell or hold any investments and naturally investing carries risks. You are advised to conduct your own research before making any investment decisions. Use information provided on this website entirely at your own risk.
If you’re expecting any packages during this final stretch of the holiday season, there’s a chance at least one of them may end up in the hands of thieves. Porch piracy — that is, the poaching of packages left at people’s doorsteps — has become a major problem in the U.S., resulting in an annual $8 billion loss, according to Security.org, a website that reviews safety products.
There’s plenty you can do to safeguard against such theft, from buying high-tech security equipment to having your packages delivered to a place outside your home, such as a FedEx or UPS location.
Still, if you do end up being a victim of porch piracy, don’t despair: There are remedies that can help you avoid being on the hook for the loss, according to merchants, credit-card companies and others. So, keep the following steps in mind:
File a police report
While it may not be required as proof of loss in all instances, it’s a good way to document the crime and provide such proof if needed. SafeWise.com, another site that reviews safety products, cautions that the police may not be able to do much without witnesses to the crime, but “they’ll take note of the incident.” Still, the report could be critical, especially if you file a claim with your credit-card issuer or homeowner-insurance company (more on that later).
Start with the merchant
This should be your next step. Many major retailers have policies in place to deal with package theft — and to help shoppers avoid it.
Amazon
AMZN,
says customers can keep tabs on an order with the company’s map-tracking feature and Prime members can select a designated day for weekly delivery of packages. Customers can also opt to have packages sent to an Amazon Locker location. But if a package is stolen, an Amazon spokesperson told MarketWatch that “we work with customers directly to make it right,” though the spokesperson didn’t provide more specifics about refunds.
See also: Holiday jeer: Package theft is on the rise, with an estimated 113 million boxes stolen in 2023
Walmart
WMT,
says that “in most cases, when applicable, we will offer free refunds and/or replacements if customers are faced with this unfortunate circumstance” of package theft. The company also notes that it generally “does not require police reports or any proof that would burden our customer.” Walmart advises you to wait two business days before reporting an issue, noting that shippers may sometimes mark packages as delivered before they actually arrive (Target
TGT,
offers a similar advisory).
But what about smaller shops or independent sellers, such as Etsy
ETSY,
creators? Etsy’s “package protection program” claims customers will receive a full refund for qualifying orders if a package doesn’t arrive. You’ll have to reach out to the individual seller who shipped the item and start a help request, Etsy explains. If the issue isn’t resolved within 48 hours, then you can ask Etsy to step in and help you get your refund.
You can also reach out to your credit-card company
Many credit-card companies have theft or purchase-protection policies in place — and that can be another option if you can’t get satisfaction from the merchant.
Visa
V,
explains its policy thusly: “For 90 days following a purchase, Visa provides purchase protection insurance in case a transaction goes wrong — that includes if something is missing or stolen, if it doesn’t work as promised or if it is defective.” Visa adds that a police report may be required in the case of more expensive items.
Mastercard
MA,
says some of its cards come with a purchase-assurance benefit that “provides coverage for most items you purchase with your eligible Mastercard if the item is damaged or stolen within 90 days of the date of purchase.” But Mastercard also emphasizes that you should first see if you can resolve the situation with the merchant.
And American Express
AXP,
has a similar purchase-protection policy that covers items that are accidentally damaged, lost or stolen for up to 90 days from the purchase date with an eligible card. You can see the individual policies for each American Express card here. American Express says you should file a police report to back up any claim.
What about the shipper?
The shipper, be it FedEx
FDX,
UPS
UPS,
or the U.S. Postal Service, is generally not the key party to reach out to when a package you’re expecting is stolen, explains Nick DiNatale, founder and chief executive of ShipPlug, a shipping-solution company. That’s because the agreement is between the merchant and the shipper, so it’s up to the merchant to work out the details of what went wrong and seek remedy on their end.
A spokesperson for UPS told MarketWatch that it encourages customers who are victims of porch piracy to do the following: “We suggest calling their local authorities, filing a police report and contacting the retailer for reimbursement or reshipment.” But the spokesperson added that “customers can also contact UPS and we will work with the retailer.”
Still, the shippers do suggest ways that customers can avoid issues. FedEx points to the fact that customers can indeed have packages sent to a FedEx-staffed location, noting that 93% of the population lives within five miles of such a place.
The U.S. Postal Service points out that customers can customize their delivery through its website, including authorizing the carrier to leave a package in a specified location. But the service also provides this basic advice: “Just as wallets and purses shouldn’t be left on the front seat of an unlocked car overnight, mail and packages shouldn’t be left uncollected in mailboxes or on front porches for any length of time.”
Finally, there’s homeowner or renter insurance
If all else fails, you can reach out to your homeowner or renter insurance provider and file a claim to cover any stolen items. Most policies allow for this, explains Samantha Bauer, a Pennsylvania-based agency owner with Goosehead Insurance
GSHD,
a company that works with several insurance providers. But Bauer warns that policies typically have deductibles of $500 or $1,000, so the stolen item would have to be of enough value to merit a claim. Even then, if you file a claim, you risk having your insurance rates go up, Bauer adds.
Nicole Lyn Pesce contributed to this article.