Under Pressure
Having sold a bunch of his Tesla stake to fund his purchase of Twitter, Elon Musk now appears to be feeling the burn from his own bad decisions.
Once again ruling via social media, Musk tweeted in response to some random detractors that he wants to own more Tesla stock than he currently does because, as the mealy-mouthed mogul claims, the company can’t safely make advances in AI and robotics without him.
“I am uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI & robotics without having ~25 percent voting control,” Musk tweeted. “Enough to be influential, but not so much that I can’t be [overruled].”
As it stands, the world’s sometimes-richest man currently owns about 13 percent of Tesla, per analysis from the Wall Street Journal, after selling off about $22.9 billion of his own shares to fund and prop up his purchase of the social network now known as X.
Musk went on to say that unless he can claw some Tesla back, he “would prefer to build products outside of Tesla” — a threat, basically, that he could go off and start yet another company if his demands aren’t met.
Compensatory Blues
As the multi-hyphenate South African-Canadian-American added in a subsequent response, much of the ownership issue is related to the outstanding verdict from a 2022 case brought by Tesla shareholders complaining that his compensation plan — which made him the richest man in the world — was way too big.
Unsurprisingly, Musk disagrees with the shareholders’ assessment and insists that he is more interested in his “voting influence” on the Tesla board than in making any more money.
“If I have 25 percent, it means I am influential, but can be overridden if twice as many shareholders vote against me vs for me,” he tweeted. “At 15 percent or lower, the for/against ratio to override me makes a takeover by dubious interests too easy.”
He’s not wrong there — except that in this case, the “dubious interests” may well be Musk’s own.
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