Shares of Tesla rose in Monday trading after a ruling by the Delaware Supreme Court restored Elon Musk’s 2018 chief executive compensation plan, bringing an end to a closely watched legal fight that has loomed over the company for years.
Additional momentum appeared to come from renewed investor focus on Tesla’s robotaxi ambitions following a weekend incident involving a key rival in San Francisco.
Tesla shares were up 2.6% at $493.80 in midday trading, outperforming the broader market.
The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 0.4% and 0.2%, respectively.
Delaware Supreme Court restores Musk’s Pay
The Delaware Supreme Court ruled that a lower court had gone too far when it ordered Musk’s 2018 pay package to be rescinded, calling the remedy excessive.
The judges reversed the cancellation and awarded $1 in nominal damages, effectively reinstating the compensation plan, which was valued at roughly $56 billion at the time it was struck down.
The decision resolves a lawsuit brought by Tesla shareholder Richard J. Tornetta, who had accused Musk and the board of directors of breaching their fiduciary duties in approving the record-setting award.
While the Supreme Court restored the pay package, it left intact other findings from the Delaware Court of Chancery, including conclusions about Musk’s influence over Tesla and shortcomings in the board’s approval process.
After the original ruling against the pay plan, Tesla moved its incorporation out of Delaware and sought to reaffirm Musk’s compensation through a second shareholder vote.
Investors later approved an even larger pay package in November 2025, tied to aggressive performance targets over the next decade.
Robotaxi rivalry back in focus
Beyond the legal development, Tesla also drew attention from an unusual episode in its ongoing robotaxi rivalry with Waymo, a unit of Alphabet.
A power outage in San Francisco on Sunday left roughly 130,000 homes and businesses without electricity and disrupted traffic lights across parts of the city.
Waymo temporarily paused its autonomous taxi service after its vehicles, which are designed to treat nonfunctioning traffic lights as four-way stops, became entangled in worsening congestion.
Waymo said most active trips were completed safely before vehicles were returned to depots or pulled from service.
Still, the pause drew attention online, particularly after Musk commented on his social media platform X that Tesla’s robotaxis were unaffected by the outage.
Tesla is currently testing robotaxis in San Francisco with safety drivers in the front driver’s seat.
The company also launched a robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, in June, where vehicles operate with safety monitors in the front passenger seat.
Waymo, by contrast, runs fully driverless services in five cities, completing more than 450,000 autonomous rides each week without safety drivers or monitors.
The incident underscored the contrasting technological paths taken by the two companies. Waymo began as a purpose-built robotaxi service, relying heavily on detailed mapping and a suite of sensors, including lidar.
Tesla’s system is built on its Full Self-Driving driver-assistance technology, which relies primarily on optical cameras and is designed to continue operating by interpreting its surroundings even when infrastructure such as traffic lights fails.
Both approaches have shown progress, but the San Francisco blackout highlighted how edge cases — such as widespread power outages — can still challenge autonomous systems.
For investors, the episode added another data point to an already heated debate over which strategy will ultimately scale more effectively.
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