I love what Musk's companies are doing, but I would never actually want to work for any of them. They all heavily take advantage of passionate people by overworking and underpaying them, while Musk and the big shareholders alone trap the lion's share of the rewards. Musk is the world's richest person now, but he can't even help fund his employees' retirement?
Meanwhile I'm over here getting a 50% no-limit match on my contributions, which is pretty common in tech.
"no limit" seemed amazingly generous until I realized the total annual contribution limit is $19,500 (exceptions apply), so this benefit would be valued at about $9,750. Still very generous, but should be factored with other benefits when evaluating total compensation.
Yeah, the company doesn't put a limit on it but the IRS of course still has a limit. The IRS limit goes up with every passing year though, and thus the company contributions do too.
To restate: It goes up over time, not necessarily strictly every year. Though this year the all-source contribution limit went from $57k to $58k, which benefits those of us taking advantage of megadoor 401ks.
And while the IRS is trying to match inflation, companies aren't necessarily, so having no limit lets you march along with inflation whereas having a defined limit that your company isn't increasing to keep pace with inflation will leave you falling behind.
This is what is so disgusting in a way. People adore and worship a man for his wealth but not how he got there. Not paying your employees a fair share or securing their safety just because it's legal doesn't make you a great man.
I believe the 50% match the GP is referring to is 50% of what you contribute, not 50% of base salary. For example, if they put in 6% of their base salary, the employer matches with 3%.
I assume from context that the 4% you mention is a straight 4%. That is, if you contribute 3% of your salary, your employer will match with 3% as well, but once you pass 4, the employer stops there. So if you're putting in 10%, the employer still just puts in 4%.
What was your company's max contribution? Typically an X% of salary isn't unlimited, it's up to a certain cap. E.g. let's say you're a director making $1M/yr, they're not contributing $40k/yr to your 401k (this would very likely violate the IRS's 401k safe harbor rules).
6% of compensation would still be a safe harbor plan, excluding the plan from ACP/ADP test requirements, so unfortunately it's quite possible that the director making ~$1MM annually in salary gets a ~$40k match (though not much more, because the total cap for 2021 is $58k, and that director is likely maxing out or close to maxing out, so $19.5k + $40k would cap them.)
I looked into this more and the IRS apparently sets an "Employee compensation limit for calculating contributions", which is currently $290k. So 4% of your salary on a match ends up being $11.6k, which is slightly better for highly compensated employees than the max $9.75k for a 50% match, but of course is significantly worse for people making way under $290k (i.e. most people).
Also worth pointing out that the all-source IRS 401k contribution limit is currently $59k/yr, so even with an insane 500% no limit match or something that manages to pass the safe harbor test, there still is a limit you'll hit eventually. It's high though.
Ah, yes, you're right: I forgot about the contribution limit. Technically QNEC/QMAC can still be used to increase beyond that, because they're not computed off of compensation--but that wasn't your point.
>Why on earth would I want a 401k when I can own Tesla stock at a discount?
Because investments should be stable and at least partially reliable as a backup plan - if Tesla goes bankrupt and ceases to exist then not only do you lose all your Tesla stocks, but you're also out of a job at the same time.
no that's not always the case - it's up to the individual to think for themselves what they want their investments to be. Tesla shares held by employees may want to keep it for the potential future growth. If they dont, they are allowed to sell.
forcing all employees to choose a "stable" investment option is just patronizing - let them choose for themselves.
> Because investments should be stable and at least partially reliable as a backup plan - if Tesla goes bankrupt and ceases to exist then not only do you lose all your Tesla stocks, but you're also out of a job at the same time.
Presumably, a company with Tesla's market cap does not go bankrupt overnight. Even Google, which is no longer the place where the best and brightest want to work, is nowhere near financial decline. Employees, being insiders have plenty of time to prepare for a large company's collapse. (Black Swan events notwithstanding.)
As for investments: I'd much rather trust myself than trust a money manager who's been outperformed by my boss for over a decade.
> Google, which is no longer the place where the best and brightest want to work
Where would I go to verify this claim? It feels vaguely believable to me, but that feeling is likely from reading similar unsourced claims in forums like this one.
Talk to the smartest and most accomplished engineers you can find in San Francisco and comparable locations. Ask them where they want to work. Talk to headhunters.
Talking to the most capable and ambitious people is how you find out which way the winds are blowing.
Tesla's PE as of right now is 1,324. Which, unless they take over the entire automotive market puts them heavily into the "overvalued" category.
Its hard to imagine that tesla will still have the same valuation in the 10, 20, 30 years it might take a line worker who doesn't have tens of thousands of shares/options.
Also, most people I know in the "tech" environment now expect RSU's instead of options, because a huge percentage of the people i've talked to have stories about their options which expired underwater after a decade.
Putting all your eggs in a single basket is just a recipe to be like the huge percentage of enron/etc workers who overnight went from employed with a solid stock/401k/etc retirement to standing in food lines as they both lost their job as well as their retirement.
> and has had one of the best performing stock prices in the market.
Lately. For now.
Investing in a company on its way to being in the Top 10 may give decent returns, but once a stock is in the Top 10 it tends to trail market returns by 1.5% per year:
Latacora has a 100% no-limit contribution match and non-shitty funds (access to all of Fidelity's index funds), loan provisions, and all conversions unlocked for any reason, available on day 1, with all contributions immediately and fully vested. We also eat every fee we're allowed to eat.
Niiiice. It's hard to imagine a better 401k plan than what y'all have. Enjoy it. And I assume, based on everything else, that you have a reasonable low-fee provider like Vanguard or Fidelity with good low-fee fund options.
Fidelity, and every index fund Fidelity has to offer, yep. The QDIA is an automatically selected target date fund-of-index-funds, but I'm manually allocated.
I’m curious as well, as reference for another tech company, say amazon, it’s up to a 3% match but only vests after three years. Iotw tech is all over the map on 401k afaics.
The importance of a "no limit" match is that it disconnects your benefit from your salary. Most matching offers are limited by your salary so a lower paid worker gets less benefit than a higher paid worker.
Some of the very largest tech companies offer these kinds of plans. Google and Microsoft do. Facebook has a 50% match up to 7% of salary, so if you're making over $139k/yr (which every technical employee is) then it's functionally the same. Apple is 50% match up to 6% of salary, which equalizes at $162k/yr.
Add all that together, plus all the smaller companies that also have great plans (like Netflix) and we're talking over a million employees in tech that all get the effective benefit of the company contributing 50% of the IRS personal contribution limit. I would call that common.
>"while Musk and the big shareholders alone trap the lion's share of the rewards"
I get you but I think Musk doesn't accumulate wealth in the way you are thinking here. And that in general he at least works the same shitty hours and conditions he expects others to work. A relevant interview:
Döpfner: Are you looking for places?
Musk: No, I'm not really buying any places. I stay at a hotel sometimes.
Döpfner: Where are you sleeping tonight?
Musk: I'm just going to be sleeping at the factory in one of the conference rooms.
Döpfner: You'll be sleeping in a conference room in the factory?
Musk: Yeah.
Döpfner: Alone?
Musk: That's my understanding, yeah. You've got to get a feel for the situation.
Döpfner: You said, in a recent quote, that possession just weighs you down. And that's why you want to get rid of your possessions. And that's why you have literally started to sell property. You have sold belongings. Is it more a metaphor or are you literally selling your belongings?
Musk: I sold my primary home.
Döpfner: The one in LA?
Musk: It was done two months ago. It was actually bought by a guy in China. And then I sold the house I own across the road, which used to be owned by Gene Wilder. It's very much his personality, and I sold it below market to his nephew who grew up there. And then we're in the process of selling my other houses. I guess I'll rent a place somewhere.
Döpfner: So why are you doing it? Because it's too much of an obligation, or it's limiting your freedom? You are considered to be the second-wealthiest person in the world. And now you are getting rid of your property.
Musk: In fact, I'll have basically almost no possessions with a monetary value, apart from the stock in the companies. So, if things are intense at work, I like just sleeping in the factory or the office. And I obviously need a place if my kids are there. So, I'll just rent a place or something. And a lot of the time it's just me, so I don't really need a big place.
Döpfner: So, no art collection, no cars, no real-estate property, no other stuff that we usually associate with wealthy people. Do you believe that getting rid of all that makes you a free man?
Musk: Yes, essentially, I think that also. Like the reason that I am accumulating wealth, if you will, which is really just stock in Tesla and SpaceX. The only publicly traded stock I own is Tesla. That's it. If Tesla and SpaceX go bankrupt, I will go bankrupt personally. One-hundred percent. But I also think, why should I try to have stock anyway. Why do I have all this stuff? Going back to what I was saying earlier, I think it is important for humanity to become a spacefaring civilization and a multiplanet species. And it's going to take a lot of resources to build a city on Mars. I want to be able to contribute as much as possible to the city on Mars. That means just a lot of capital.
Döpfner: And you want to focus on that?
Musk: Yes, and I'm also just trying to make clear that I'm serious about this. And it's not about personal consumption. Because people will attack me and say, oh, he's got all these possessions. He's got all these houses. OK, now I don't have them anymore.
> And that in general he at least works the same shitty hours and conditions he expects others to work.
This is not at all an excuse for pressuring others to do the same.
This interview is completely irrelevant. What he decides to buy in his personal life has nothing to do with his wealth, and doesn't change the fact that he's one of the richest people in the history of the planet.
I agree with your main point I just wonder if he's trying to avoid taxes, in particular get out in front of a wealth tax which was proposed in CA with his sudden "sell all my houses" position.
I assume that "50% no limit match" is for 401K contributions? In which case, I guess it still has an IRS backstop of $9750 if you max out your 401k contributions?
Correct. The no limit means that the employer's contributions aren't arbitrarily limited by some percentage of the employees' salary, which has the effect of hurting lower income employees.
I wonder how they do that and stay compliant with IRS non-discrimination testing. Our company capped 401K contributions for "Highly Compensated Employees" (HCEs are $125K/yr+ according to the IRS) a couple years ago to stay compliant with IRS non-discrimination testing. From what I understand, a certain percentage of 401K contributions have to come from non-HCE employees, otherwise the HCEs get capped.
The HCE test is complicated, but it basically amounts to ensuring that the disparity between 401k plan usage isn't too great by compensation (so like a Gini coefficient for 401ks).
The way Google satisfies the test probably comes down to three factors:
1. All employees are opted into the plan at hire at 10% of salary, possibly even with a default 1% contribution increase per year (I'm unsure).
2. It's actually not exactly 50% match; it's 100% match on the first $3k and then no additional match on the next $3k, or in other words, it's 100% match that smoothly decreases down to 50% match by $6k and then stays at 50% all the way up to the IRS limit. This helps reduce the 401k "Gini coefficient"; it's progressive contributions.
3. A lot of the lowest rungs of jobs are TVCs, not employees, so they don't even count for this test because they're technically employees of another company (which itself would have a much worse 401k plan than Google's, if any). It's not great but it's relevant here :/
Musk has stock options that he has to buy and he doesn't get a salary. He said he doesnt own houses or yachts and he works all the time. He's spending it on making humans interplanetary. Of all the billionaires to bitch about, Musk is clearly many standard deviations more industrious and capable than any of us, surely if there is financial allocation it should go to those who merit it the most? Would you prefer to have our lives set up in any other way?
Personally I think Musk is more in the "accidental" billionaire category than many of them (by that I mean his wealth is heavily volatile with a lot of risk, and was hard to predict).
That said, most of these billionaires have gotten there because they were able to abuse some part of the capitalistic society. The "quality product for a fair price" bit is warped in some way due to monopoly power, exploiting their workers, etc.
Which is why a lot of people really dislike the Waltons, Bezos, etc billionaires. Its hard to answer why they should benefit so hugely when they could have cut into their wealth a little and given their employees a working wage, or slightly better benfits, etc. Instead they have created massive generational wealth gaps where their children/etc will effectively be royalty, and then cynically used propaganda to even neuter the government/financial system from ever re-leveling the playing field.
And what for, so they can have tens of billions instead of tens of millions while something like 50% of the population lacks even basic healthcare, or for that matter food security?
Tesla is one of the stingiest wildly successful companies ever. They're still managing the day-to-day as though they're a scrappy startup that might miss payroll next month. I suppose they can get away with this as long as the stock keeps skyrocketing, but once that ends the low salaries, long hours, and poor benefits are going to come back to bite them badly.
Good question! Why would a company rather invest 1.5B$ in something volatile like bitcoin instead of investing it in the well being of their employees?
Or any part of their production and process... Musk has managed to drive the stock price up. But many of his decisions seem questionable from value investor perspective. Or downright self-serving...
> instead of investing it in the well being of their employees?
because the returns of "investing" in their employee's retirement is not a good ROI for shareholders of tesla. simple as that. There's no humanitarian obligation for tesla to make their employee's retirement great, or any other obligation (other than contractual obligation for payment of wages and benefits already committed).
if employees feel that they are short-changed, they _need_ to leave, and let market forces adjust. if they sacrifice their own wellbeing to the "mission" of tesla, that's on them.
Tesla is pretty cash constrained. They needed an equity raise to shore up their cash position just last year. It's trending better, but they've been cash flow negative or slightly positive.
Despite the offer of stock based compensation for employees, I still think this is a bad idea. The 401k is one of the most effective ways to encourage long-term savings among employees. Its an important benefit with significant tax advantages.
Pensions are basically just 401k's with the risk spread over a larger pool. You know like insurance. A well run pension assumes a conservative rate of return, a conservative inflation and a life expectancy. Then it funds at a level needed to assure a fixed payout to a portion of its workers. No differently than a 401k, except that its a larger pool capable of absorbing market downturns that happen while people are drawing on it just as it absorbs higher returns.
The problem with many of the US pensions were that they were seen as places to raid, or underfunded to gain a slightly better quarterly number, or they were intentionally screwed by wallstreet banks who sold them assets with fixed rates of returns they knew were false. AKA pension plans have been the target of all kinds of fraud, very little of which has been prosecuted.
And then there was the propoganda. Which worked really well. Hey do you want a pension which will pay you 50% of your salary for the rest of your life or this $50 a month which will grow at 8% a year and you will retire with $ million dollars you can do anything with? The business were much happier to cut their pension obligations and match their workers with a far less substantial 401k benefits. Giving your workers $2k a year in 401k matches without any future risk looks a lot better on the balance sheet than putting $5k in a pension for them and assuming the risk that it will be enough to keep them from depending on government handouts.
A pension is a debt that the company owes you. Betting your retirement that the company will pay you back is comparable to investing your whole 401k in the company’s bonds. Yes, responsible companies plan ahead and save for their debts. But sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they fail. That’s why there is interest: compensation for risk. Responsible investors don’t take on such enormous counterparty risks with individual counterparties.
Pensions in the US are backed by the pension benefit guaranty corporation https://www.pbgc.gov/.
Which despite the "corporation" in the name, is just another government agency tasked with dealing with failed pensions.
Sort of the pension version of the FDIC.
edit: And to add to this, the funding of the pension is required to be a separate pot of cash from the operation of the business. There were a number of companies in the 1990's/etc that got in a lot of legal trouble for using their pensions as financing for the business.
> Giving your workers $2k a year in 401k matches without any future risk looks a lot better on the balance sheet than putting $5k in a pension for them and assuming the risk that it will be enough to keep them from depending on government handouts.
I feel like this sentence undermined the rest of them. Even giving them $5k would be better for everyone involved, as now the company wouldn't have to assume the risk and the employee would be able to direct their own investment.
Maybe, the point being that they can claim a similar level of benefits by simply assuming a much higher rate of return (or whatever) and rather than under-funding a pension, for which there are legal requirements they can give the worker less cash in a 401k and claim the same rosy rates of return and benefits. Then when those projections fail and the worker ends up working until they die, or collecting government assistance, the company doesn't have to take any responsibility.
But from a company overhead view, the company could just contribute whatever amount they want in a pension too. The problem though is that then they would have to use the conservative numbers and point out that the pension might only be 10% of their salary or some other similarly low value.
I think if they put error brackets around the 401k they would look a lot less rosy. Here choose a pension with $ a year, or put the money in a 401k and it may yield $$$$ or it might yield $. In one case you will be able to retire on the beach, in the other you won't be able to retire at all. Or you just go with the safe pension option that lets you retire with the same lifestyle.
I feel like my entire life I've read about companies going belly up, raided by vulture capitalists, and in the end a court determines that the pensioners get nothing and have no case.
You’re reading about an extremely small subset of companies with pensions. However, they serve as a very cautionary tale: pensions do not have zero risk. They are very far from it. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a risk comparison between defined benefit (pension) and defined contribution (401k) plans. I’d suspect that the defined benefit risk is lower, but not by much.
There are two main problems with pensions that I see:
1. The longer you work someplace, the more locked in you are. Pensions are structured such that working at the same place for 40 years is better than working at four different places for 10 years each, even if you get paid the exact same salary.
2. When you die, your children get nothing. With the 401k, whatever your balance is goes to your heirs. You can argue that it is better for society for your children to get nothing: that is a valid point of view. But we have a system in place where some people pass on assets to their children and others do not, and the differentiator between the two is the employer. That’s crazy, and the only logical way to play this game is to be on the winning side.
Can't you take your shares and deposit them in your 401K (pre-tax) and then sell them within it (not taxed) and exchange for a fund or w/e you're interested in diversifying with?
Unclear how the "deposit shares in 401(k)" step works. 401(k) contributions come from salary: you can't just put random things in your 401(k) except in specific circumstances (like a rollover). You can do in-kind transfers _out of_ an IRA (and maybe a 401(k), I'm not sure), but you can't do in-kind transfers _into_ a 401(k) or IRA. IRA contributions have to be cash, 401(k) contributions have to be cash comp.
The employer could match with shares in some circumstances, but the point of the article is that Tesla is forgoing all matches, so that's not relevant.
It’s not an IRA. 401k plans have very limited options for how to invest the money. Usually some bonds (low fixed rates) and index funds. There’s also usually some targeted funds which balance the risk for you and an “income” fund which is very low risk but tries to do better than the fixed rate bonds.
And with an IRA, you can only deposit money not stocks. You have to sell first, deposit the money, and reinvest.
Generally, yes, but the thing you're looking for is called "self-directed" and is supported by most major providers. The nicest one if you really want to do this is probably Schwab.
The problem with GP's scheme isn't that there's a good reason you can't hold whatever security you want in your retirement account: it's that you can't make the contribution in-kind from a taxable brokerage to your tax-advantaged 401(k)/IRA.
It's true that that's rare: but that's because your employer is giving you a shitty 401(k). Ask me about the Latacora 401(k) one day.
This constraint is why I've been putting more emphasis on my brokerage account. Even without tax sheltering, I have been able to outpace my retirement account's rate of growth by a very substantial margin (it's already maxed for matching purposes).
There are tons of added benefits to having your money in a place where you can actually control it (i.e. buy specific stocks with no maintenance fees). I am starting to see the tax deferral status as a sales tactic to lock people into lucratively-managed funds. There are so many ridiculous constraints around how much you can contribute that the tax deferral feels meaningless once you put all of the factors together over a truly meaningful sum of money.
All of that said, I am totally onboard with encouraging healthy savings habits for the masses, but for more advanced users there are definitely better options out there.
To make a point specifically toward Telsa - I feel working for one of Elon's companies is sort of a risk in and of itself. You know you are going to be worked harder and maybe be compensated less. The stock offering is paltry for the average case when considering the volatility of the underlying and lack of diversification. For the advanced user case, TSLA might make perfect sense. More savvy employees may decide to trade their TSLA shares on their brokerage or directly through other platforms in order to build a more diversified portfolio.
Well, for retirement the general recommendation is:
401k to match (which would mean 0 if no match)
IRA (Roth preferred if an option) to max
Then 401k to max individual contribution
The reason is related to what you describe. Brokerage accounts (typical of IRAs) give you much more freedom and often much better investment options (often better index funds, if nothing else). The reason to go back and max the 401k is the tax advantage in retirement. And if the funds were bad (mine aren't, fortunately), you could always move your 401k into your IRA.
I used to subscribe to the boglehead ideology - I.e. there's no way to beat the institutional investors.
Then, I encountered about a decade of real-world experience and actually tried my hand at investing in things that made a lot of sense to me, not based on historical pricing or other ridiculous voodoo, but based upon my knowledge of those securities relative to my experience in the technology sector. At no point do I screw with day trading or options. Simple long positions gets the job done. Risk still must be managed, even if we decide we are OK with more of it.
I will absolutely grant you that the boglehead methodology makes sense if you dont want any stress at all regarding your investments, or otherwise have concerns that actively managing your money would devolve into a gambling addiction. For most people, this is probably the best path.
If you consider where the incentives and power lie in the system, you might come to the realization that these ideologies might be based upon ulterior motives which are at your expense. If you are managing trillions of dollars in 401k assets, the last thing you want is for everyone to take full ownership of their portfolios and divest from managed funds.
Only if that 401(k) is invested in a bunch of low-fee index funds. I've helped people move off 401(k)s with horrible QDIAs with 2% GERs that somehow managed to lose money in _2019_.
I assumed that's what _you_ are doing since you proclaim to be a Boglehead :-) I'm saying that the GPs claim is only hard to believe as a Boglehead if you know they're invested in index funds in their retirement account. But 401(k)s are notorious for not having access to those.
Saying that your brokerage account substantially outperforms your retirement account is perfectly compatible with a Boglehead perspective: all that means is that your brokerage account holds SCHB and your retirement account holds some infernal actively managed trash from Voya or whatever.
There's a clear broken incentive there: a 401(k) manager with a sibling advisory firm will happily be the loss leader on giving companies 401(k)s for free because they'll make up for it in management fees. This is strictly bad for employees, who rarely have the knowledge to differentiate between 401(k) plans and even more rarely have the agency to do anything about it.
That would track if they simply didn't offer 401k matching. If you read the article it seems more like a bait-and-switch.
Employees are in a position to speculatively contribute to their 401K not knowing if the offered match is going to happen.
---- quote ----
It is the third straight year the automaker has not made any contributions to its 401(k) plan, according to the filing.
The Tesla Inc. 401(k) Plan automatically enrolls participants in the plan with a deferral rate of 5% of employees' salaries with the option to contribute more, according to the plan's most recent Form 5500 filing.
According to the Form 5500, the plan allows for an "employer discretionary matching and/or an employer discretionary non-elective contribution subject to certain eligibility requirements." Those requirements were not met for the 2019 plan year, according to the Form 5500.
The nature of those requirements for Tesla to make contributions to the 401(k) plan was not available. The stock price for the automaker was up 695% for the year ended Dec. 31.
This entirely depends on the plan agreements. I’ve had hospital 401ks that use fidelity and have access to brokeragelink which lets you trade individual stocks.
A company can match 401k contributions with company stock. If you were receiving a rapidly appreciating stock as part of your compensation package, it would make sense to want to have the option (but not the obligation) to receive your Tesla stock in your 401k to shield it from income taxes in the short term.
Really depends on your current income, projected retirement income, current and future tax brackets, if your 401k supports Roth contributions and in service conversions, etc.
To your point, the goal is to optimize for capital appreciation and minimizing tax drag on that capital for its investment duration.
Surely we can agree that for the specific case we're discussing: TSLA TTM, you would prefer the Roth version of that at every income level if it was available.
I get stock but I also get 401k matching too. The two are not the same at all and most good tech employers offer both.
Also, what does he think his personal compensation has to do with anything? This is about his employees' retirement plans, not about him. It's only about him insomuch as he's the one ultimately making the decision to be stingy.
This is kinda non-news. Stock price is up an incredible amount, so employees vesting stock have done extremely well. Were I in their position, I would also forgo 401k matching.
Yeah, I know, snarky. But that is of course the danger of having all your eggs in one basket. Anecdotally, you cite Tesla. Anecdotally I'll come back with Enron.
Fair point. I think the prudent employee should definitely diversify seeing as the stock is certainly overvalued at the present moment. While many people are taking majority positions in Tesla I don’t think it’s ever a good idea for anyone to put all their eggs in one basket ;) Enron or Tesla..
What is the state of 401k fees? Is it 1% AUM? The PBS doc "The Retirement Gamble" made 401ks look horrible.
===
Making some reasonable assumptions about a worker with 30 years to retirement, the 1980 version of the 401(k) tax deferral was equivalent to an additional investment return of 9.2% per year, an extraordinary incentive to save for retirement, even without an employer match. Using today’s numbers the benefit comes out to 0.6%, considerably less than the 1% to 2% in fees investors pay in typical 401(k) plans.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-07-21/401-k-...
Many 401k plans have 0% fees and tiny fees on plan investments. I'm paying 0% fees on my 401k plan and absurdly low fees on the Vanguard Institutional Plus funds within it: .01-.04% per year depending on fund. (No that is not a typo.)
It all depends on the plan provider. The big ones like Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab, etc., are all rock solid.
Its depressing the way a lot of contracts are written to fuck over employees. Look at your employment agreement. I bet your company is allowed to choose not to pay out 401K matches as well.
One of my friends who works there is getting ready to retire on the (non-401k) stock options he received (within the next year or two). He's only been out of college for 5 years.
"It's their money they can do what they want" is a bad argument. I can buy a sandwich in front of a homeless person begging for food and I can break it into pieces and feed it to the birds in front of him. It's my money I can do what I want. It doesn't change that fact it would be a disgusting thing to do to someone.
It's generally accepted that if you work with people and they contribute to your success you should recognise that and reward them rather than attempting to exploit their passion as far as possible. Elon Musk absolutely doesn't have to do that, but that doesn't mean people can't judge him for being an asshole.
Meanwhile I'm over here getting a 50% no-limit match on my contributions, which is pretty common in tech.