Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he was not comfortable running the electric car company without at least 25% of the voting rights, double the current level.
According to Tesla's financial report, in the third quarter of 2023, Musk owns 13% of the electric car company's shares. This is a large number, especially after he sold tens of billions of dollars of Tesla shares in 2022 to buy Twitter.
Still, Musk wants more power at Tesla. “I can’t comfortably lead Tesla to become a leader in AI and robotics without 25% of the voting power. That’s enough to have influence, but not so much that no one can stop me,” he wrote on X on January 15.
Musk has said that if he can’t do that, he’d rather create those products outside Tesla. Musk has long touted Tesla’s “full self-driving” software and humanoid robots. In April 2022, Musk predicted that the humanoid robot Optimus “will be worth more than cars and self-driving software.”
American billionaire Elon Musk in Rome, Italy, in December 2023. Photo: AFP
In his X post, he said he would be happy with a dual-class structure to achieve his goal of 25% voting power, but he was told that would not be possible after Tesla went public.
Companies with a dual-class structure typically issue two or more classes of stock with different voting rights. Typically, there will be one class of stock with larger voting rights, reserved for founders or early investors. And another class for other shareholders with smaller voting rights.
“It’s strange that a multi-class structure like Meta, which could give 20 generations of Zuckerbergs control of the company, was approved before the IPO, while a normal dual-class structure is not allowed after the IPO,” he complained, referring to Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Platforms.
Musk is also facing legal trouble over his compensation package at Tesla. Richard Tornetta, a shareholder in the electric car company, has sued Musk and the board for several years, accusing Musk of using his power to get a huge bonus package since 2018 without having to work full-time for the company. Musk and the board have stopped discussing a new bonus package while they wait for a court decision on the matter.
Ha Thu (according to Reuters)
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