In March, after a sharp drop in Tesla, Elon Musk told the employees, “Wait for your shares.”
The Chairman of the Board of Directors Tesla, Robyn Denholm, had disregarded his advice. Mrs. Denholm has earned $ 198 million in the last six months by the seller of Tesla, which she received for the service on the board, according to an analysis of the submission of securities in the New York Times.
This brings its total profit from the sale of Tesla’s shares to more than $ 530 million since it became the leader of the board at the end of 2018, much more than its peers achieved in the most valuable US companies at this time, shows analysis.
The sale of shares raises questions about Mrs. Denholm’s trust in Tesla’s prospects. Her latest revenues made as part of the preliminary business plan filed last summer, came when Mr. Musk, CEO of the company, took over the time -consuming role in Trump’s administration. Tesla’s sales partially threw itself because some car buyers turned off Mr. Musk’s political activities. The company’s quarterly profit dropped to the lowest level in four years during the first three months of 2025.
Mrs. Denholm gained the right to buy these shares known as stock options, for merger on the Board of Directors, part -time. Tesla has granted the possibilities between 2014 and 2020 and its stock price has increased since then and gives Mrs. Denholm the right to buy shares for much less than their current price. For example, last week she bought more than $ 112,000 for $ 24.73 per piece and sold them on the same day for more than $ 270.
“In order to throw its shares, it does not send a message that it is the Chairman of the Board of Directors invested in the future of the company,” said New York City controller, Brad Lander, who oversees five public pension funds of the city. Since March, these funds have held more than three million shares of Tesla, which at that time were awarded at about $ 817 million.
Mrs. Denholm spokesman said Tesla had paid members of the board in a way that was “in accordance with the interests of shareholders”.
“The reason why the value of Tesla’s directors has increased is that Tesla overcame its industrial peers and created excessive revenues for the company owners, shareholders,” he said in a statement.
The stock options, which for years have formed most of Tesla’s directors, are valuable only if they increase the price of the company’s shares as Tesla did. Those who use their opportunities to buy the company’s shares can sell or stick to their new shares.
Mrs. Denholm sold more than 1.4 million shares of Tesla and, according to Times, continues to hold 85,000 of them and about 49,000 stock options. The methodology was revised by the research company Equilar, a research company for compensation. Her last wave of shares sales was carried out under a plan that launched in July, soon after Mr. Musk approved Donald J. Trump for the President.
According to securities regulations, managers and other initiates can use these plans to share shares in their companies. It is not obliged to publish many details of their plans, including the reason for them or the conditions under which the shares will be sold. They also have a lot of freedom to cancel the plans.
Mrs. Denholm, a native of Australian and veteran technology managers, maintained a low profile and rarely talks about Tesle or Mr. Muska. In 2014, she was admitted to the Tesla Board of Directors and in 2018 appointed the chairman after Mr Musk agreed to withdraw from the position in agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
She and other members of the Board of Directors were criticized by some investors, activists and judge of Delaware for not serving as a counterbalance to Mr. Muska, who is widely considered insolent and impulsive. Tesla directors were also fault for not providing Tesla to stay on Tesla.
“Musk seems to be without supervision of the Board of Directors,” wrote Chancellor Kathaleen St. J. McCormick of Delaware Court of Chancery when it ruled in favor of a shareholder who attacked Mr. Musk in 2018 worth approximately $ 56 billion. In this decision, Judge McCormick described the style of Mrs. Denholm’s supervision of Mr. Musk as “Lackadaisical”.
Tesla referred to a decision that canceled Mr. Musk’s payment package, and Mrs. Denholm pushed back to the criticism of Judge McCormick.
“Anyone who knows me knows I’m not a shortage now that I know what the word means,” Mrs. Denholm said the Financial Times last year. “It’s probably the farthest of the truth. I’m really intense and very hard in what I do.”
During the court proceedings Mr. Musk, Mrs. Denholm described the money she made from her service Tesla Board as a “changing life”. The director of Pay in Tesla was subject to an independent court, which in 2023 settled Mrs. Denholm and other members of the Board of Directors.
Mr. Musk, who has long been the CEO of Tesla for a part -time, has taken over even greater obligations over the years. He became a regular presence in Washington and led President Trump’s efforts to reduce government expenditures and the release of federal government employees.
Musk recently said he would shorten his time in Washington to one or two days a week. However, his attention is likely to remain divided because several other businesses, including SpaceX and X, also lead the social media website that he owns.
Mrs. Denholm’s first sale in her recent business plan took place in November, a week after the presidential election, because the Tesla price was rising. The shares reached a few weeks later, in December. At the beginning of May it continued to sell because the company faced consumer resistance over the political activities of Mr. Musk AK a decline in stock price.
The stock is now a decline of around 34 percent of their peak after renewing some of their losses over the past few weeks.
Mr. Musk recognized Tesla’s problems during the meeting with the company’s employees in March. “If you read the news that it looks like, you know, Armageddone,” he said half funny.
He continued to the Council to not sell their shares, and said that Tesla would become the most valuable society in the world because he improved taxis and robots with his own drive that resembled and moved like humans. “The future is incredibly clear,” he said.
The sale of Mrs. Denholm was far exceeded by the director Tesla, with the exception of Mr. Musk, who remained on board after resigning as chairman.
She and other current and former members of the Board of Directors of Tesla agreed that in 2023 they agreed to regulate the action for shareholders on their remuneration, which in summary they agree to return a compensation worth $ 735 million. Have denied unlawful conduct. The stock options worth more than $ 130 million were canceled 1 May to meet Mrs. Denholm’s obligations in this settlement, showing the security of securities.
The members of the Board of Directors agreed in June 2021 after the trial was filed to give up new stock grants.
Mrs. Denholm also earned more money selling shares of their company than the leaders of other corporate councils in the same period. The Times reviewed the sale of shares by the Chairman of the Council for the most valuable US companies, which, like Mrs. Denholm, are not in these companies.
The absence of the chairman with the highest profit from the sale of shares in the company he oversee was Stephen Hemsley of the Unitedhealth Group. Since November 2018, Mr. Hemsley has earned more than $ 100 million from the sale of UnitedHealth shares, although he received all these shares when he was the CEO of the Health Company.
The Unitedhealth Group confirmed the findings, but refused to express itself. On Tuesday, the company announced that Mr. Hemsley would be repeated as chairman as chairman.
The sale of shares of executives and the director often predicts the poor performance of the companies that leads some academic research.
Leaders, such as Mrs. Denholm, have access to non -public information and a deep understanding of how wider economic forces can affect society’s performance. As a result, their shops, especially profitable, according to Neat Seyhun, a professor of finance at the University of Michigan.
The consecration “sets plans when they have information,” said Professor Seyhun. If conditions change, “they can cancel these plans.”
