Musk is worth every cent of his $56bn Tesla pay package

The entrepreneur is the future and young people admire his boundary-breaking style, says Chris Blackhurst. The courts should butt out and let the firm's shareholders have their way

- Chris Blackhurst

The moment my children became interested in the US election was not when Taylor Swift declared her support for Kamala Harris, it was when Elon Musk appeared alongside Donald Trump. They're late teenagers - young adults - and Musk is their hero. It's not just that he's the world's richest man, although that adds considerable lustre. It’s because he breaks boundaries, not least with his attempts to award himself a $56bn pay package, compensation that a judge this week ruled excessive.

He’s also the future, their future. They admire the Tesla, “faster than a motorbike from traffic lights” one said to me recently. They can take or leave X (formerly Twitter), it’s not their network. And the space rocket reversing into a dock, as neatly as any car – that video has been replayed in our household countless times. They’re not bothered by aspects of Musk’s character that make him hard to appreciate. Criticisms that he’s ill-considered, temperamental, graceless, self-serving, ruthless, simply do not resonate. He’s a superstar and deserves all the rewards coming his way.