Tesla founder Elon Musk turned down a dinner invite from the boss of Norway’s largest sovereign wealth fund after the firm voted against his massive pay package — telling the snubbed Scandinavian that “friends are as friends do.”
Nicolai Tangen — the CEO of the $1.7 trillion wealth fund Norges Bank Investment Management — had invited the tech titan to join him for dinner at his home in Oslo in October.
Months earlier, Norges, one of Tesla’s 10 largest investors, had struck down a $56 billion pay deal for Musk that would now be valued at around $100 billion after Tesla’s stock soared last year.
Musk was quick to note his disappointment with Tangen’s decision.
“When I ask you for a favor which I very rarely do, and you decline, then you should not ask me for one until you’ve done something above nothing to make amends,” Musk wrote via text, according to messages the firm provided to Business Insider.
“Friends are as friends do.”
Tangen had hoped Musk would join executives from Ferrari, Nestlé, Adidas, DoorDash and Novo Nordisk at the dinner ahead of the fund’s annual investors conference in April.
Norges owned a 0.95% stake worth $6 billion in the carmaker as of June, according to the fund’s latest available data.
Tangen said he understood and wished Musk luck, adding that they were cheering him on as a shareholder.
The text messages were first published by E24, a Norwegian newspaper, after the firm released them under Norway’s expansive freedom of information laws.
A few days after rejecting the dinner invite, Musk asked Tangen whether he had given their messages to the media.
Musk forwarded him a text exchange with another unnamed person who claimed Tangen leaked the correspondence to “promote himself” due to “political ambitions.”
Tangen told Musk that everything he sends and receives is public information under Norway’s transparency laws.
The fund manager also said Musk’s “personal comments” were not released, only his remarks about not attending the conference.
“This country is obsessed about you, but this is not reflecting badly on you. Still, sorry for any inconvenience,” Tangen said.
A representative for Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A Delaware Judge Kathleen McCormick rejected Musk’s $56 billion compensation deal early last year, and again in December.
NBIM, though, voted against the pay package, citing concerns “about the total size of the award, the structure given performance triggers, dilution, and lack of mitigation of key person risk.”
More than 70% of Tesla shareholders voted in favor of the pay deal last June during Tesla’s annual investors meeting.
Musk has slammed McCormick’s ruling as “totally crazy” and called her an “activist posing as a judge.”
