Elon Musk is so distracted by his many corporations that he’s mismanaging Tesla, traders say. ‘There may be collective frustration’

The 17 shareholders, who maintain greater than $1.5 billion of Tesla inventory, mentioned Musk is distracted by his commitments to different corporations and should be reined in, in keeping with an open letter they despatched to Chairwoman Robyn Denholm and Director Ira Ehrenpreis Friday. They need the board to give you a plan to take action and search to take away administrators too carefully tied to the CEO.

“There may be collective frustration,” mentioned Ivan Frishberg, the chief sustainability officer for Amalgamated Financial institution, a union-owned financial institution that has 722,070 shares in Tesla throughout its numerous funds. “Over the past yr, it grew to become fairly clear that Tesla suffers from a governance drawback.”

Tesla didn’t reply to a request for remark in regards to the letter.

Whereas governance complaints are nothing new for Tesla, they solely add to the record of challenges going through the EV maker. Earlier this week, the corporate reported lackluster first-quarter earnings after aggressive worth cuts it undertook to fend off opponents squeezed income. Musk mentioned he plans to slash costs additional, even when it hurts margins, sending the inventory plunging greater than 10% on Thursday.

Amalgamated Financial institution, New York Metropolis pension funds and different signatories to the letter need Musk to focus so he can navigate the more and more aggressive EV market and regulatory scrutiny. The corporate is going through probes by the US Division of Justice, the Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration and California’s Division of Motor Autos over its autopilot system.

Whereas Tesla’s inventory plummeted Thursday, the billionaire CEO was watching a rocket from one other firm he based and runs — SpaceX — explode above Boca Chica, Texas, shortly after liftoff.

The Austin, Texas-based carmaker is now price half its $1.2 trillion market cap on April 4, 2022, when Musk first disclosed his stake in Twitter Inc., the traders identified. He in the end purchased the social media firm and has run it since October. 

“It’s unprecedented to be a CEO and in addition be operating two different corporations on the identical time,” mentioned Courtney Wicks, govt director of Investor Advocates for Social Justice, which represents a number of faith-based traders. “I can’t think about some other board permitting a CEO to have as many exterior enterprise actions.”

Earlier this yr, one other Tesla investor — who isn’t related to the letter — filed a decision asking the corporate to create a plan to deal with its reliance on Musk. Tesla’s board has beneficial shareholders vote towards the proposal on the firm’s Could 16 annual assembly. Whereas these sorts of resolutions face a troublesome street to success, the carmaker’s poor current inventory efficiency might rankle traders in any other case inclined to aspect with the corporate.

A number of the shareholders who signed onto the letter have introduced resolutions to the corporate’s annual assembly prior to now. This yr’s proxy comprises only one decision, down from eight in 2022 — largely as a result of information Tesla was rescheduling the assembly was buried in a regulatory submitting.

The letter goes on to an inventory of collection of different points the traders argue put the corporate in danger. Amongst them: the corporate’s litigation with the state of California over the remedy of Black staff at Tesla’s Fremont manufacturing unit, using obligatory arbitration and the termination of staff who have been concerned in a union organizing effort in Buffalo, New York. 

The group additionally criticized Tesla for opening a showroom in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Area in China. Activists and politicians have accused China of committing human rights abuses within the space.