Morning Brew Daily
Musk Wins His $1 Trillion Pay Package & October Layoffs Hit 22-Yr High
07 Nov 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, Elon Musk officially begins his trillion-dollar quest.
Then we just had the worst October for layoffs in over two decades. It's Friday, November 7th.
Chapter 2: What did Elon Musk's $1 trillion pay package entail?
Let's ride.
Good morning and happy Friday. You gotta hear about this museum tour over in Dusseldorf, Germany. At the city's Kunstpalast Museum, they run a tour twice a month where a guide, Joseph Langelink, constantly berates you for being dumb and not knowing about art.
Chapter 3: Why was October 2023 the worst month for layoffs in over 20 years?
According to The Guardian, the 70-minute tour costs seven euros and is described in marketing materials as grumpy and highly unpleasant. It's also ridiculously popular. Every single grumpy tour has been sold out since May, and they're booked solid through the end of the year.
The concept was invented by performance artist Carl Brandy, who was convinced people enjoy the emotional rollercoaster of hanging out with an aggressively rude person. Playing the role of Langelink, he says, I never insult visitors directly based on their personality or their appearance, but I insult them as a group. My contempt is directed at an inferred ignorance that may not even exist,
but I try to make them feel as ignorant as possible. Toby, I think this is genius and other museums are going to copy it.
There's so many little nuances as to why this works specifically in a museum. It's not a comedy club, so there's no separation between the audience and the person doing the insulting, so it feels more intimate. Plus, it's not a place where you normally get insulted or laugh in general. Museums are not those types of institutions. Also, there's this undercurrent that museums hold all the power.
They're putting the art out. They're putting whatever out. for you to see. There is a little bit of that perceived ignorance. I walk into museums and you look at something like, I don't really know what's going on there.
So I think all of those layers just make it a really fun and, you know, diverse experience with so many different angles as to why you're saying, why do I like this guy yelling at me? So, booking my trip over to Dusseldorf right now because it seems like a good time.
I don't think you'll have to because I think a lot of museums are going to start to copy it because they're trying to get people in their doors and they're saying, oh, well, this grumpy tour is sold out from May through December. I should probably get on that. And now a word from our sponsor, U.S. Bank. If your laptop is starting to slow down and freeze up, it's probably time for an upgrade.
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Chapter 4: What companies were major contributors to the October layoffs?
That's usbank.com slash splitcard. In the most highly anticipated shareholder vote in, well, ever, Tesla investors approved CEO Elon Musk's historic pay package with over 70% voting in favor. If Musk hits aggressive targets over the next 10 years, he will gain potentially $1 trillion in stock, making him the world's first trillionaire and then some.
We've never seen anything like this pay package in corporate America before, and we may not again until Elon clones himself. What we're about to embark upon is not merely a new chapter of the future of Tesla, but a whole new book, Musk said. I guess what I'm saying is hang on to your Tesla stock. So why did Tesla offer it to him? Well, a little backstory is in order.
Last year, a Delaware judge blocked Musk's existing pay package at Tesla worth up to $56 billion, finding the board was under too much of his influence when it approved the deal. Outraged over that decision, Tesla chefed up a new one worth a lot more and presented it to shareholders for their approval. And they did. Not that the outcome was ever in doubt.
It was as inevitable as an Alcaraz Center Grand Slam final. Musk ratcheted up the stakes in recent months, saying that if he didn't receive this pay package, he would ditch the company to build AI products elsewhere. To most investors, the prospect of Musk leaving Tesla would be unfathomable. They are one in the same.
The majority of Tesla's $1.5 trillion valuation is tied not to its car business, but to Musk's vision of a Tesla 2.0 that sells millions of Optimus humanoid robots a year and operates a globe-splanting feat of self-driving taxis. They're betting $1 trillion is enough to keep his eye on the prize.
This has just been the trillion-dollar saga because this follows two months of very aggressive campaigning by Tesla, which is not something you normally see when it comes to a shareholder vote. I mean, Tesla ran ads for this. Tesla doesn't even run ads for their own cars, so it just shows you how much they thought that this was an existential vote and needed to go the way that they wanted it to.
Tesla Chair Robin Denholm said... that the board isn't actually concerned with how Musk is splitting his time. She said other CEOs might like to play golf. Elon doesn't play golf. He likes to create companies. So basically they're saying we're making peace with Elon having his attention very fractured, but we still need him.
And then you have the psychologists get involved here because what is the difference between a $56 billion pay package versus a trillion dollar pay package? And to them, they say it doesn't actually make much of a difference. Once you reach a certain level of wealth, any incremental gains beyond that is something that doesn't necessarily change your daily life.
What is he going to buy more coffee? Is he going to make his coffee at home? No, it doesn't change anything about his life. And also, some MIT Nobel laureates have looked into this idea of diminishing returns when it comes to financially incentivizing leaders of companies. A study of the 10 most valuable NASDAQ firms from 2017 to 2022 found no link between CEO pay and stronger stock performance.
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