Tesla’s Chairwoman of the Board, Robyn Denholm, has denied {that a} report claiming the board has looked for a brand new CEO to exchange Elon Musk, the one optimistic transfer it could have made in years.
Musk additionally commented on the report.
Yesterday, we shared a Wall Avenue Journal report that claimed Tesla’s board had thought of hiring an govt search agency to probably exchange Musk as CEO, amongst different issues, together with pressuring Musk to spend extra time at Tesla.
We famous that if the report is correct, it could be the primary time the board has stood as much as Musk after years of letting him do as he pleases at Tesla, regardless of being a minority shareholder.
They’ve backed his each transfer, granted him a $55 billion CEO compensation bundle, and remained silent when he threatened Tesla shareholders that he wouldn’t develop AI merchandise at Tesla except given a bigger, extra controlling share of the corporate, or determined to hearth Tesla’s total charging group to make an instance out of the top of the group.
Tesla’s then-third-largest particular person shareholder, after Musk, Leo KoGuan, advised Electrek final 12 months that he couldn’t get his issues about Musk heard by the board.
Most not too long ago, they haven’t addressed the protests at Tesla shops and product boycotts, that are attributed to Musk’s involvement in politics, angering a good portion of the inhabitants and Tesla’s client base.
In consequence, Tesla’s gross sales are crashing, however the board by no means ever hinted at contemplating blaming the corporate’s prime administration till the WSJ report.
Now, Tesla issued a press release signed by Chairwoman Robyn Denholm denying the report:
Earlier as we speak, there was a media report erroneously claiming that the Tesla Board had contacted recruitment corporations to provoke a CEO search on the firm. That is completely false (and this was communicated to the media earlier than the report was printed). The CEO of Tesla is Elon Musk and the Board is very assured in his capacity to proceed executing on the thrilling development plan forward.
Musk shared the assertion and added this remark:
It’s an EXTREMELY BAD BREACH OF ETHICS that the Wall Avenue Journal would publish a DELIBERATELY FALSE ARTICLE and fail to incorporate an unequivocal denial beforehand by the Tesla board of administrators!
It’s honest to say that Tesla, and Musk specifically, have been identified to disclaim studies that turned out to be true.
The WSJ claimed to have reached out to each Musk and Tesla earlier than publishing, and that neither responded.
Electrek’s Take
It’s fairly hilarious that, lastly, the board is reported to be doing the proper factor, and it rushes to disclaim it. It’s actually the board’s job to plan for the CEO succession. Musk is splitting his time between 6 completely different main initiatives and Tesla deserves a dedicated CEO.
However: “hey! Woah, no, we’re not looking for a brand new CEO as a result of that will imply we’re not Musk’s private puppets.”
Whereas I did notice to take the WSJ report with a grain of salt because the unnamed sources did seem to come back from an govt search agency that wasn’t chosen, and a few Tesla traders, I are likely to imagine them greater than Tesla and Musk right here.
They did say that they reached out to each, which they’re now denying. That is customary follow and could be shocking if it didn’t occur. What could be much less shocking is for Tesla and Musk to not reply since they don’t have a press division.
I wouldn’t be stunned if the board began floating the concept of probably changing Musk as leverage in opposition to him to commit extra time to Tesla.
However all the factor is ridiculous. Making an attempt to get Musk to spend extra time at Tesla is counterintuitive to saving the corporate.
Let’s be sincere, any CEO from every other automaker that finds itself within the scenario that I’m about to explain would have been fired a very long time in the past:
- Launched a single new automobile in 5 years, and it’s a business flop
- Quickly declining gross sales
- Quickly declining gross margins
- Large protests and boycotts of your product attributable to its CEO’s mindless involvement in politics
- CEO promising full self-driving {hardware} on tens of millions of autos and solely admitting 6 years later to be fallacious – needing all these autos to be retrofitted.
Any a kind of is a fireable offense, and but, Musk is stacking them up whereas the board cashes a whole lot of tens of millions in inventory choices.
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