That regulatory scrutiny is probably well placed, however, since Musk's companies have been known to stir up controversy. Case in point, this week Tesla's directors agreed to pay nearly a billion dollars to settle claims that they had previously overpaid themselves through stock options worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The legal case stemmed from a 2020 lawsuit filed by the Police and Fire Retirement System of the City of Detroit, which alleged that Tesla's director compensation package was completely untethered from normal compensation practices. Reuters notes, for instance, that the board's chair, Robyn Denholm, made as much as $280 million through her compensation package.