Elon Musk has vowed to continue his fight for a record-breaking pay cheque from Tesla that has spiralled to €96bn but has again been blocked by a judge, writes Calum Muirhead.

In a ruling that infuriated the billionaire chief executive of the electric car giant, a Delaware court rejected the pay deal for a second time – despite shareholders approving it.

Judge Kathaleen McCormick’s decision, which upheld a similar ruling from January, sparked a furious outburst from Musk, the world’s richest man with a fortune of €336bn.

“Shareholders should control company votes, not judges,” he wrote on the social media site X, which he owns.

“Absolute corruption,” he said in a separate post.

Tesla said it would appeal the ruling, with a spokesman adding: “This ruling, if not over-turned, means that judges and plaintiffs’ lawyers run Delaware companies rather than their rightful owners – the shareholders.”

The mammoth pay deal was drawn up in 2018 and was initially valued at $56bn.

Backed by shareholders, it was tied to a series of milestones, including company profits and the Tesla share price.

But it was struck down by the court in January in a case brought by a disgruntled investor, with McCormick ruling that the board which approved the deal was too heavily influenced by Musk.

The judge described it as the “biggest compensation plan ever – an unfathomable sum”.

Since then, the pay deal has soared in value – in part due to the rise in the Telsa share price since Donald Trump’s election victory last month – and is now worth €96bn.

But despite being backed by 75pc of shareholders in a fresh vote in June, the judge again ruled Musk, 53, was not entitled to the payout.

She argued Tesla had failed to prove the package was fair and that Musk did not exert heavy influence over its board.

As well as slapping down the pay award, McCormick ordered Tesla to pay legal fees of $345m.

The row comes as Musk prepares to join President-elect Trump’s administration, having spent hundreds of millions of dollars backing his campaign.

Musk has been put in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency alongside fellow tycoon and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

The commission, which will not be an official government department, has said its mission is to “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure federal agencies”.

Dan Coatsworth, investment analyst at broker AJ Bell, said: “It’s somewhat ironic that Musk now has an influential role with government efficiency.

“He’s looking for ways to save money and stop unnecessary spending, yet he continues to think that Tesla should line his pockets.

“It’s an obscene amount of money and will be seen as insulting to the tens of thousands of workers at Tesla who probably earn a tiny fraction of that amount.”

Despite the defeat in Delaware, Musk could try to secure his bumper pay packet by constructing a similar award in the state of Texas, the location of one of its giant “gigafactories”.