Elon Musk is the wealthiest man in the world. Much of that wealth

comes from his shares in Tesla and the Tesla stock he earns as

CEO. But before Musk can get paid, his compensation needs to be approved by

Tesla's Board of directors.

And that board is supposed to be independent.

So Tesla trades on the Nasdak, which defines an independent director as someone who is not an employee,

a family member, or someone whose relationship quote unquote would interfere with the exercise of independent judgment.

And NASDAQ requires that the majority of the board be independent.

That's our colleague Rebecca Elliot who covers Tesla. And last week a Delaware judge threw out a huge pay package for Musk that the board had approved.

The judge said that Tesla's board wasn't independent enough in this matter,

and that Musk had too much influence over them.

This question of Elon's control over Tesla's board has really hung over the company for years. In the past it has not come to a head quite like this,

but in this case we had a Delaware judge saying this was not okay.

For months Rebecca and a team of reporters have been digging deeper into Musk and Tesla's board and they found some of the

relationships are complicated involving deep personal and financial ties.

Welcome to the journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Kate Leimbaw.

It's Monday, February 5th.

Coming up on the show, is the relationship between Elon Musk and Tesla's Board of Directors too close? Like some kind of Pizza Ninja, Domino's are slicing their prices.

Domino's price slice.

Small pizzas now 8 quid, medium now 10 quid and large now 12 quid.

Yet we're making cuts too.

Domino!

...