The Delaware Supreme Court has delivered its final verdict in the lawsuit concerning Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s massive $55 billion payroll package, a subject of debate since 2018. The court overturned a previous ruling by the lower court, the Court of Chancery, which had previously annulled the payroll, and reinstated it.

Musk’s wealth increased significantly.

With this decision, Musk received the largest employee payroll in world history, while the court imposed a symbolic $1 fine on him for the unfairness of the package. The court also ordered Musk to pay legal fees expected to reach hundreds of millions of dollars for the parties who filed the lawsuit.

Tesla shareholders first approved the package in 2018. Tied to seemingly unattainable financial targets at the time, this payment has grown to approximately $139 billion based on current share prices once all targets were met.

The process was brought to court on the grounds that Tesla investors were misled and that the board of directors was too close to Musk to act independently. The Court of Chancery upheld these arguments and invalidated the entire package.

Following this development, Musk decided to move his companies’ headquarters out of Delaware and called for a new vote among shareholders. However, the court also declared this second vote invalid, citing the use of similar marketing tactics.

While the legal process continued, the Tesla board of directors, without consulting shareholders, used employee stock reserves to make an interim payment of $26 billion to Musk. Meanwhile, in another vote last month, a new package was approved that, if all targets are met, could increase the company’s value to $1 trillion and reduce the stake of other shareholders by 12%.