Ever had to work with no pay at all?
I love my job.
I love doing what I do.
But the tension is mounting at work.
It's not a good feeling.
U.S. air traffic controllers aren't showing up to work and flights are being cut.
Well, I almost cancelled my trip because I was like, I don't even know what's going to happen.
And I'm just sick of it.
It's like, what about us?
U.S. travel chaos on World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
I'm Ed Butler, and today we're going to be looking at all the disruption in a range of major US airports.
10% of flights are being cancelled from tomorrow.
Casualties of America's longest ever federal shutdown.
And staying with air travel, why a Texas court has decided that Boeing won't be facing criminal charges after all for two fatal air crashes.
Before all that, the story that has just broken in the last few minutes.
Tesla shareholders have voted to approve a massive pay package meant to retain the services of its billionaire CEO, Elon Musk.
Mr Musk stands to gain as much as 878 billion perhaps even more over the next decade, pursuing a vision of morphing the EV maker into an AI and robotics juggernaut.
The biggest executive pay package in history, they're calling it.
He threatened to quit if he wasn't approved.
Well, our North America technology reporter correspondent I beg your pardon, Lily Jamali is with us.
Hi, Lily.
Dramatic scenes, I bet.
Just explain how this pay package is going to work.
It's all tied to company performance, right?
That's correct.
And thanks for having me on.
Yeah, this was a raucous scene in Austin, Texas, where the annual general meeting is being held.
There are a lot of Tesla shareholders there, many of them fans enough that they would travel to Texas in order to participate in this meeting.
But people who are not there in person have been casting their ballots, these shareholders, on whether this 1 trillion pay package should go forward.
And he does have to meet certain requirements in order to achieve that.
And it's got 12 steps.
The big one is that he has to be able to lift the company's value from the current 14 or so trillion value to 85 trillion.
That's quite a target, isn't it?
Yeah.
It's quite a target, right?
Many times more than it's worth today.
But this pay package passed with more than 75% approval, according to the company.
And when that announcement came down today, you heard cheers go throughout the audience.
Cheers going throughout the audience, but there were some significant shareholders opposing, weren't there?
There were a number of institutional investors in Norway, here in California CalPERS, which is the largest public pension fund in the United States.
Comptrollers in New York State, New York City people who control, you know, significant pension funds came out and quite vocally said they were not going to be supporting this plan.
The thing that's interesting about Tesla is they have such a broad base of individual investors who just really care about Elon Musk.
They like him.
And so, I think, more than other companies you have, there was that opportunity for him to send a message that resonated with those what you might call mom and pop investors.
Okay, Lily, Jamali, thank you very much indeed.
Well, we've heard that there was opposition.
There were also support, I guess, from the board.
Delaware court had struck down a prior pay deal last year, saying that a smaller, 56 billion pay package was excessive because the board was too close to Mr Musk.
Peter Barden.
Vleth Hansen worked for Tesla for 10 years as head of business development in Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Hi, Peter.
Thanks for joining us.
You've worked under Elon Musk directly.
What do you think?
Is he really worth this much?
Well, there are two answers to that.
One is if this is just a normal car company manufacturing nice EVs and selling them off.
No, he's not.
But if this is a company that produces robo-taxis, builds the world's largest infrastructure set out, produces Optimus robots and supplies the world with Optimus energy amounts and all of the above and much more then yes.
Right.
I mean, that is the plan, right?
That's the vision he's been setting out.
The timing of this, though, is interesting because Tesla sales –
Haven't been doing great, have they?
They've been falling across much of Europe.
They're struggling in China where local rival car makers are offering cheaper options.
The one thing that Tesla used to have was a cool EV brand.
But it isn't looking that way to an awful lot of people at least out there who like the idea of electric vehicles, who are generally more liberal minded.
And Elon Musk has moved into national politics and supported the Trump administration.
Exactly.
For all intents and purposes, shot himself in the foot.
But in reality again going back to what I was saying before, he's selling more than just the vehicles.
And he does have a very strong base behind him.
And for them to vote against this pay package and risk the fact that he could leave Tesla would be the same as saying that they don't believe in the vision.
And if they don't believe in the vision, they sure as hell don't believe in the 14 trillion market cap that the company has at this current stage, which is huge, probably 70 or 80 more than it should be if it was just a car company.
So, in reality, what he is?
He's an amazing salesperson who has managed to build up the value and now says he will build it six, seven times more than this.
And so they don't really have the choice of pulling the handbrake.
Did you believe his threat that he would quit without it?
Did you believe his threat?
Oh He, probably he could have done so, probably not directly, but he probably would have done something that would have cut his nose off, despite his face kind of.
I mean, you know him.
You've worked under him.
Does he does he feel like he needs this money?
Do you think?
I mean, he's already pretty much the world's richest man, worth half a trillion dollars by some estimates.
What's behind all of this?
He says it's not about the money.
He says it's about the control of the company.
But I think, you know, in reality, Elon's become a demigod.
And once you sort of go across that and I'm not a psychiatrist or anything else, but I do believe that once you do get at that stage, then enough is never going to be enough.
Yeah, a demigod to some, a villain to many others.
I mean, win or lose?
Well, I mean, I suppose he's won the pay deal.
But what will it do?
Just this piece of news.
Do you think for the company's image, for its reputation, with most regular motorists, I guess, who are still his prime market?
In fact, one would think hope and think that this was going to give a needed boost.
He's definitely now with his pay package said that I'm here for a minimum of a decade more, and I'm going to put everything into making sure that this company becomes seven or eight times more valuable than it is today.
And the only way I'm going to do that is obviously being able to deliver on those KPIs, which means that he will have to make fantastic products.
And that, I guess, is something that the market is hungering for.
Peter Barnflith-Hanson, thank you very much indeed.
Kerry Lee, he's an economist at Columbia University in New York.
He's been following the markets for us.
What do you think about this DePay deal?
It's the biggest in history.
It's kind of eye-watering, isn't it?
Well, the crazy thing about it is, even though you can say that Paybackit is absolutely and utterly ridiculous, if he does hit all his his targets in 12 stages, he will make his shareholders a lot of money and himself even more.
So the whole point is in one way or another, if he, if he gets paid, the holders get paid.
So in some sense he's he set the goals and targets so high and he's got to work on all eight, 12 or 16 cylinders to get it all done.
He actually will make, make himself worth it.
If he makes it, if he makes it.
And I guess if he doesn't, the stock will slide and perhaps so will his remuneration.
But again, US stocks.
Let's just talk about them more generally.
They slid on Thursday.
We private sector jobs data.
I was struck by this.
There were these figures showing that October job cuts were the worst monthly figure in any year since 2003.
But this was private data, right?
This is not the usual state kind of government jobs numbers.
The government.
The market has been a bit starved of numbers lately because of the shutdown, hasn't it?
Absolutely.
They're depending on private sector information.
And this particular set of information has been around for a long time.
This is the Challenger layoff report.
So it's not a new series in that regard, but it is kind of a funny number where they add up all the expected changes people are planning.
And that could be cuts that won't happen for one, two, three or even four or five years.
So it's talking about cumulative cuts that will last at least a couple of years over a wide range of industries, and they may change their mind if they end up needing employees.
But right now, given the angst about the economy and the lack of information about the labor market which the Fed has made the king decision-making outcome, right now you jump on everything and this clearly was very disappointing news.
Finally, the European Commission.
Well, finally for now, the European Commission has opened an antitrust investigation into the stock exchange companies Nasdaq and Deutsche Börse.
Could you just explain what this is about?
It seems ferociously complicated, but essentially the American and German exchanges may have entered into agreements, it is alleged.
Well yes, what you have is vying for a market which, particularly outside of the United States, is growing very rapidly in terms of the amount of non-US market cap in the equity market.
And the problem you have is the one Adam Smith talked about hundreds of years ago that when you get rich people together in a private room, they end up talking about fixing prices.
So there's some worries that maybe that was going on in these two particular exchanges.
But it's so incredibly complicated.
What probably will end up happening is there'll be no true criminal charges, but there'll probably be some substantial fines that'll have to be paid by somebody.
Kerry Leahy, for now, thank you very much indeed.
You're with World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
Now then, we are staying in the US, where the country's main airports are preparing for serious disruption over the next 24 hours and beyond.
The US Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, has said that he's going to begin grounding flights on safety grounds.
There is going to be a 10% reduction in capacity at 40 of our locations.
This is data-based.
This is not based on what airline travels, has more flights out of what location.
This is about where is the pressure and how do we alleviate the pressure.
Yeah, a 10 reduction across 40 major airports as officials try to manage safety concerns during the ongoing government shutdown that we've just referred to.
With not enough air traffic controllers who are turning up to work partly because they're not being paid.
The transportation secretary says that it just isn't safe to keep all those scheduled services in operation.
And for travelers on the ground, the frustration is palpable.
The traffic controllers having to work without pay all the time, I think is just unreal.
It shouldn't be, you know.
I do travel a fair amount, and hopefully they can come to some agreement within this next month.
Well, I almost canceled my trip because I was like, I don't even know what's going to happen.
But yeah, it's just all unexpected events.
I'm just sick of it.
It's like, what about us?
Well, let's bring in Eric Hansen.
He's a senior vice president and head of government relations at the U.S.
Travel Association.
Hi, Eric.
You were warning on this show, this very show, World Business Report, a few days ago.
And now it's happened.
This could just be the beginning of the cuts to scheduled services, couldn't it?
I think that's the main point that the impacts are piling up, not just the economic impacts, but the disruptions to travel are getting worse.
And the closer we get to Thanksgiving, which is a major travel holiday for the United States, I think, the more disruptions we're going to see.
So this is that we're at the bottom of the hill now and climbing.
How are airlines and indeed, how are businesses, travel companies hotels, how are they all responding right now?
Airlines airports, hotels.
They are lifting heaven and earth to make sure that you can get to your destination safely and on time, and so you can have a good experience.
But they shouldn't have to be working this hard.
The federal government should be working alongside of them.
And the reason that they're not is because Congress is not working.
Congress is gridlocked.
They can't reopen the government.
And, as a result, we're seeing so much work go into just providing the basic travel experiences for the United States.
We'll get to the politics in a second.
But you did estimate on this show, a billion dollar a week price tag, didn't you?
To the shutdown disruption that we have seen over the last five, six weeks?
What if this goes into week seven?
I mean, into Thanksgiving week, it's going to start costing an awful lot more than that, isn't it?
Well for the economy and for the travel businesses that depend on flyers to arrive on time and safely, it's going to be disastrous.
You know, our estimate of $1 billion in losses per week is based on previous shutdowns.
But now we're in the longest shutdown in U.S. history.
So we can expect that those totals could climb beyond $1 billion per week.
So not only are the economic impacts piling up, I think, but the impacts on a daily basis, hourly basis could be getting worse.
You've written a letter to Congress demanding you and other members of the travel community asking, demanding that they get back together and cut a deal pass, if you like, the transitional legislation that's on offer from the administration, from the Republicans, just to get government back open again.
It seems like the politicians aren't feeling it yet, though, are they?
I mean, at least not enough to cut a deal.
I think members of Congress are starting to realize that things are getting bad and they're only going to get worse.
What our letter showed is that this is not just about the airlines.
We had 500 travel companies and organizations from nearly all 50 states sign this letter.
They pulled the fire alarm saying this is going to get worse.
So no member of Congress is safe from the negative impacts of the travel slowdown.
And I think now we're starting to see more attention, more negotiations, more concern.
And we hope that drives members of Congress towards a deal.
Do you think people will be able to fly home for their Thanksgiving turkey?
I think the airlines and the airports will make sure that Americans, if they want to travel, they want to get home, they can get there.
I think the uncertainty of the system, though the experience they may have along the way, is not going to be what we should expect and not what we should accept from our government.
So you can get there, but you're really rolling the dice if you can get there on time.
You're really rolling the dice if you think it's going to be worth the hassle.
So, you know, Congress needs to do its job.
Eric Hansen of the US Travel Association.
Thanks very much indeed.
Let's stay with air travel.
A judge in the US state of Texas has just agreed to dismiss a criminal case against the aviation giant Boeing.
This in connection with two plane crashes that killed more than 340 people back in 2018 and 2019.
The move comes following a deal between prosecutors and Boeing.
It means the company will now have to pay more than a billion dollars in fines, investment and compensation to victims' families, but will not face criminal charges.
So let's talk about this in more detail.
I'm joined by Anita Menderata.
She's a special advisor to the Secretary General for UN Tourism.
Hi there, Anita.
I mean, what do you make, first of all, of this deal between the prosecutors and Boeing?
There's an interesting connection actually between your question and the conversation you just had with Eric.
To answer specifically about your comment about the deal that was made.
I think what's really important about this is what if the deal had not been made?
There will never be any amount, any justice that will bring back those 346 people.
So there's no issue at all in terms of the grief and the loss that the people suffered in terms of those two flights in 2018 and 2019.
But when we look at the actual deal that was made, it was a $1.1 billion deal.
And again, the number is almost secondary.
If Boeing were to suffer basically a criminal conviction, if Boeing were to shut down, if they were being put into a period of hold, what would that mean for not only the global traveling public and the U.S. traveling public, but it also goes into trade and cargo.
And this is why I was enjoying listening to your conversation with Eric.
The shutdown in the U.S. is not only holding back travelers, which are often seen as non-essential.
What about trade?
What about cargo?
What about careers?
Because that's where you start impacting the entire supply chain and that has a serious knock-on effect at an economic level.
There are strong economic arguments, no doubt.
But I mean, it was interesting, wasn't it, what the judge said on Thursday.
The government's position.
I'm quoting him Boeing has committed crimes sufficient to justify prosecution.
Failed to remedy its fraudulent behaviour on its own during the deferred prosecution agreement, which justified a guilty plea and the imposition of an independent monitor.
But now Boeing will remedy that dangerous culture by retaining a consultant of its own choosing.
It doesn't sound like he was a big fan.
No, not at all.
You're absolutely right.
And the judge's comment saying that the agreement fails to secure necessary accountability.
To ensure the safety of the flying public.
That planted a very dangerous seed of concern fear, anxiety amongst the traveling public that, as we've seen especially from the conversation you had with Eric, is already nervous about the ability to travel from A to B without disruption, without hassle, without risk.
I think what's also important is that the simplicity at which it's been pulled down, to that this is just about bringing in one consultant.
It's a little bit anemic in fairness.
The work that's being done by Boeing, the work that the CEO, Kelly Orthberg, the new CEO who took in for the previous CEO, who really sat through the Senate grillings and did not do well at all.
He is trying to embed very clearly a safety and equality culture which is not simply about making promises to customers, to regulators, to travelers and to investors, but making sure that, right through the entire organisation, safety and culture is owned, it's demonstrated, it's measured and it's consistently delivered to the regulators again, customers and the investors and the flying public.
This is now a behavioural shift.
Well, okay.
I mean, obviously there are relatives of victims who will argue that the rich and the powerful were being protected, and so forth.
But I mean getting beyond that.
Let's just look at Boeing itself and the reputation of that company.
I mean, it's been a tough few years, let's be honest.
They've had whistleblowers committing suicide.
They've had doors flying off in midair.
We've had these particular fatal crashes.
Do you think there's any sense that this is drawing a line under what has been years of turmoil for America's leading planemaker?
One would hope, absolutely.
And this does feel very much like a significant bookmark in the story of Boeing and that it's allowing the organization to again rebuild and recover, exactly as you say, reputationally.
What's important is ultimately as well the need from the world's perspective and from the US perspective, for Boeing to succeed, not at any cost, but it must succeed because it's four in 10 areas commercial aircraft that we see in the sky.
If Boeing does not exist, we lose literally 4% of commercial aircraft movement.
It's 170,000 employees across 65 countries.
So it is a fundamental part of the This is a real challenge, though, as you say, to the new CEO.
He's only been in office just over a year.
So he has an enormous amount to prove.
And the proof and the trust is going to come through consistency of quality delivery, consistency of showing up and showing that the culture has changed and getting the deliveries out on spec on time.
Anita Menderata, thank you very much indeed.
A little bit more on the markets now from Kerry Leahy at Columbia University in New York.
Kerry, just quickly, talk about this one.
Pfizer and Novo Nordisk in a takeover clash over the obesity biotech Metzera.
I mean, we've had a lot on this story in the last 24, 48 hours, haven't we?
Both these pharmaceutical giants, the weight loss drugs, they're in a big arm wrestle over this.
Who's winning this battle?
Well, I would say at the moment they're probably...
You argue they're both winning or both losing, but this is a market that's huge and is expected to get huger, particularly if they'll be able to switch from actually having to do injections to actually doing it via pills.
So I think the market thinks that there's a tremendous opportunity, and it may not be just the two giants that make money, but even smaller firms, depending on how the technology and the regulatory system unfolds.
OK, Kerry Leahy, thank you very much for that.
Now one of the world's biggest shipping companies, Maersk has reported stronger than expected results.
It says that China's exports remain buoyant at the moment.
This despite all those ongoing trade tensions it's been having with the United States.
Maersk's chief executive, Vincent Clerk, has been speaking to my colleague, Will Bain.
What we've seen already since the end of 2023 is the exporting machine from China gaining pace and seeing significant growth across all of its trading regions.
Really, whether it is Latin America, Middle East, Europe or North America, we've seen that growth.
We've seen most growth even into the other Asian countries.
So a very, very broad based growth from China, a market that, for the last eight quarters, has kept on surprising by its resilience, despite some of the changes, including some of the ones that happened during this year.
We see a market that is growing around 4 this year, but China is going to grow 11 which, when you think about the base and the size that China has 11, is an astounding number.
And it was already the case last year.
What is the situation right now, particularly in the Red Sea, with Houthi rebels firing on shipping through that area because of what's been going on in the Middle East?
So today, we're still avoiding it completely.
But I have to say that the ceasefire in Gaza is a great step in the right direction for Gaza, for the world, but also towards the reestablishment of normal trade routes and us being able to reopen.
For us, it's The question is, how safe is it today?
But also, how safe is it for the long run and the foreseeable future?
Because having to change trade routes back and forth all the time is extremely disruptive to our customers.
I mean, they need to carry two weeks more of inventory because that's how much longer it takes.
Another problem that we don't talk so much about is the fact that actually throughout the European continent and the UK, we have not been adding terminal capacity fast enough to cope with the trading volumes.
Long term, then, is that something that governments in Europe and in the UK need to think about.
Yeah, I think that Europe is in critical need of increasing its capacity of critical infrastructure.
It's certainly true for ports across the continent.
With climate change, we're having waterways like the Rhine that are no longer as reliable or able to move as much goods as they were before.
So some of the goods are starting to move towards roads or rail.
We are not prepared for the future.
If trade continues to grow, we're going to see significant congestions, extra costs, bottlenecks and delays as a result.
The words there of Maersk's chief executive, Vincent Clerk, speaking to my colleague Will Bain.
Now, he mentioned the situation in the Red Sea.
It is interesting, and we've had related news on this today.
Since recording that interview, attackers, pirates firing machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades have seized another oil tanker off the coast of of Somalia.
This one did not belong to Maersk.
It is, in fact though, the first commercial ship to be hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia in more than a year.
The 24-member crew of the Hellas Aphrodite, en route from India to South Africa, are said to have locked themselves into the ship's fortified safe room.
The tanker's management company...
Latsko Marine Management said it was in contact with the crew and it has activated an emergency response team.
The Gulf of Aden remains a critical shipping route for global goods.
Well, that's all we have time for for this edition of World Business Report.
From me, Ed Butler, and the rest of the team here in Salford, thanks very much for listening.
Take care.
