A group of Tesla owners is calling on brother investors to vote against CEO Elon Musk’s$ 56 billion give item, citing concerns over his distracting pledges to other businesses and the company’s weakness.
A coalition led by Amalgamated Bank and SOC Investment Group, along with six other participants, argued in a letter addressed to shareholders on Monday that Musk’s participation in five different organizations he controls is infringes on Tesla’s best interests. The team also urged owners to vote against the reelection of executives Kimbal Musk, Elon Musk’s nephew, and James Murdoch.
Elon Musk, chairman and chief executive officer of Tesla Motors, facility, participates in the opening bell service at the Nasdaq Marketsite with his twin boys Griffin, clean clothing at center, and Xavier, straight in blue shirt, and his fiancee Talulah Riley, second from right, in New York, U. S., on Tuesday, June 29, 2010. In the first initial public offering of a U.S. automaker in a half century, Tesla Motors Inc., the electric car company that has n’t made a profit, raised$ 226 million by selling shares above its forecast range. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images
According to the shareholders ‘ letter,” Tesla is suffering from a material governance failure that warrants our immediate attention and action.” Following a Delaware judge’s ruling in January that shareholders were not kept informed of important details, Tesla’s board is asking investors to approve Musk’s pay package for a second time.
Musk received equity awards as a result of Tesla’s achievement of certain market capitalization and operational goals due to his initial approval by shareholders in 2018. The judge’s decision required a revision despite the fact that the company had met all the requirements for Musk to receive the full payment of stock options. In response, Tesla’s board has appointed a strategic advisor to increase investor engagement with retail customers ahead of the company’s annual meeting, which is set for June 13.
The shareholder group expressed concern about Musk’s numerous commitments, noting that many of the signatories had written a letter to Tesla’s board more than a year prior and requested a meeting with board chair Robyn Denholm, which went unanswered. They argue that Musk’s decision to buy X/Twitter has “played a material role in Tesla’s underperformance”, undermining one of the board’s primary justifications for the substantial pay award – to keep Musk focused on the company’s long- term success.
The shareholders wrote,” If this was one of the primary reasons for the 2018 pay package, then it has been an abysmal failure, as six years later Musk’s outside business commitments have only increased”. They also made mention of the fact that Musk founded a second startup, xAI, last year and that Tesla fired away artificial intelligence specialists.
Read more at Bloomberg here.
For Breitbart News, Lucas Nolan is a reporter covering issues involving free speech and online censorship.
