WILMINGTON, Del—A Tesla Inc. director and a former executive took the stand on Monday and defended Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package against a shareholder’s claims that the entrepreneur dictated terms of the deal to finance his dream of traveling to Mars.
Tesla shareholder Richard Tornetta hopes to prove that Musk used his dominance over the electric vehicle maker’s board to craft the 2018 package and then duped investors into approving it.
The first day of a week-long trial in Wilmington, Delaware, featured testimony from Ira Ehrenpreis, a Tesla director since 2007, who was pressed to explain why the board did not demand that Musk dedicate himself to the company full-time….