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Robyn Denholm has been appointed Chair of the Board. She succeeds Elon Musk, chairman of the board of directors, as head of the board of directors by a relatively foreign group member who will face the difficult task of overseeing the billionaire non-conformist.
Denholm, chief financial officer of Australian telecommunications company Telstra Corp., has been a member of Tesla's board since 2014, but has fewer ties to Musk than most of the company's directors. Tesla announced that she would be leaving her position as CFO at Telstra in the coming months.
The announcement on Wednesday night is close to the Nov. 13 deadline that was part of Musk's settlement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to put an end to allegations that it is misleading investors. The agreement forced Musk to step down as chairman of the board for three years for an independent chairman.
By installing Mrs. Denholm, 55, as president, another person is in first place at the Tesla Summit for the first time since its inception, when Mr. Musk was named president in 2004, after becoming the most big investor. Mr. Musk, who also held the title of Chief Product Architect, led Tesla almost as an extension of himself, leading activities as diverse as strategy and marketing, and engineering. , while immersing himself in every detail of the production. He remains CEO.
The decision puts the spotlight on the brightest of American business: a woman not well known in the United States but who has extensive experience as a financial leader in Silicon Valley and his native Australia.
An agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission forced Musk to step down as chairman of the board for three years for an independent chairman.
Photo:
Marcio Jose Sanchez / Associated Press
As a member of the Tesla Board of Directors, Ms. Denholm has provided a rare automotive experience to a company that prides itself on being an industry outsider. She spent seven years at
Toyota engine
Corp.
in Australia, where she was Chief Financial Officer.
His career has flourished in the technology sector. She held various positions at Sun Microsystems before being hired at
Juniper Networks
Inc.
in 2007. She stepped down as CFO and COO in 2016 and joined Telstra in 2017, where she was originally Director of Operations. She became CFO this year.
Enthusiasm for Mr. Musk's vision of the future, including electric cars driving themselves, has helped push Tesla's market value to competition
General Motors
Co.
Although Tesla has never made an annual profit and sells a fraction of the cars. Tesla's growth was largely fueled by its continued access to capital, whether through the issuance of new shares or the borrowing of new debt. According to analysts, a Tesla without Mr Musk would probably have more trouble raising funds.
This creates a difficult situation for the board of directors of Tesla and Mrs. Denholm. They must manage Mr. Musk while allowing him to operate in an unconventional way that has allowed his success. Tesla acknowledges this in its SEC filings, noting that the company is "very dependent on the services" of Mr. Musk.
The dispute with the SEC arose from Mr. Musk's August 7 tweets in which he raised the idea of take Tesla privately and stated that he had secured the necessary financing for an agreement at $ 420 per share. The shares initially skyrocketed with the unexpected news and then dropped, as it became clear over the next few days that Mr. Musk did not have a definitive plan.
The SEC alleged that Mr. Musk had no frozen funds and accused him of choosing this price – a reference to marijuana – to impress his girlfriend.
The September 29 agreement with the SEC, in which Mr. Musk neither admitted nor denied the mischief, required him and Tesla to pay a fine of $ 20 million each. Tesla was also to appoint two new independent members to the board of directors and set up a monitoring system for Mr. Musk's public statements. Tesla has until the end of December to meet these requirements. Mr. Musk was allowed to remain as Tesla's CEO and remain on Tesla's board of directors.
It is unclear whether the loss of the role of president will change Mr. Musk's behavior. Mr. Musk, famous for his lack of restraint on Twitter, seemed to clarify the issue. On October 30, he tweeted that he had deleted his titles and that he would call "the nothing of Tesla", before adding in another message that the company was legally obliged to to have certain titles and suggested that it goes through the president.
A few days later, the company filed with the SEC documents that still called him CEO.
This tweet was part of a series of statements since the SEC's settlement that seemed to make fun of him without overriding the line of sight that prompted the agency to take further action. On October 4, he seemed to make fun of the SEC in a tweet calling the agency "Shortseller Enrichment Commission," a reference to his quarrel with investors betting against Tesla.
Write to Tim Higgins at [email protected]
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