I don’t understand how they justify this. Over the last year he’s been nothing but a liability for all of his businesses. I find it hard to believe that the people responsible for this decision value loyalty to musk more than profit, so what’s really behind it???

Simple: they value profit (for themselves) more than anything. Musk probably pays them out after the fact. Get 1T, hand out 5B/ each to all of the shareholders that voted to approve it.