The billionaire says he would be uncomfortable growing the automaker as a leader in AI and robotics without at least a 25% stake in the company (almost double his current stake).
Elon Musk has complained about a small stake in Tesla — a claim that sounds especially strange given that she herself previously sold tens of billions of shares in the company to acquire Twitter at a hugely inflated price.
At the same time, as Electrek writes, it is likely that Tesla is collecting a new compensation package for the CEO (the previous one brought Musk billions of dollars and the title of the richest man in the world). Ironically, the automaker has now cut its stock option plan for its employees.
Elon Musk currently owns 411 million shares of Tesla — about 13% of shares outstanding — but the billionaire doesn’t seem to think that’s enough to keep him at the company as CEO. According to him, a large stake in Tesla will give him more “influence” on the company’s efforts in the field of AI and robotics:
“I’m uncomfortable developing Tesla as a leader in artificial intelligence and robotics without having ~25% of the votes. There is enough to be influential, but not so much that I cannot be overthrown. In that case, I’d like to build products outside of Tesla.”
The story with the acquisition of Twitter dragged on from the moment when Musk launched a poll on the social network and announced the sale of a 10% stake in Tesla to get his hands on the company. Later, despite the signing of the agreement, he tried to abandon the acquisition, but faced lawsuits and still paid $44 billion for Twitter (including the funds received from the sale of Tesla shares – at the time this led to a significant drop in the shares of the automaker).
In the latest update on Twitter, Elon Musk revealed that the only reason there is no new compensation plan is because Tesla is awaiting a resolution to a lawsuit from shareholders who believe his compensation package is too large.
Previously, Elon and other members of the Tesla board have already returned more than $700 million to the company due to allegations of excessive compensation.
