Elon Musk says he feels “uncomfortable” growing Tesla to be a leader in artificial intelligence and robotics without having about 25% voting control of the company.
He explained in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he wants to have enough control of Tesla to be “influential” but not so much that he “can’t be overturned.” Unless that is the case, he said he would prefer to build AI products “outside of Tesla.”
With Musk owning over 400 million shares of Tesla, one social media user asked, “[I]s that not incentive enough for Tesla the company to do well for years to come?”
“You don’t seem to understand that Tesla is not one startup, but a dozen. Simply look at the delta between what Tesla does and GM,” said Musk. “As for stock ownership itself being enough motivation, Fidelity and others own similar stakes to me. Why don’t they show up for work?” he said.
Musk has a current ownership stake of about 13%, which is down from the 22% ownership stake he had before his $44 billion purchase of Twitter in late 2022, according to Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives.
It would negatively alter the Tesla story if Musk created his own AI company — separate from Tesla, Ives suggested in response to Musk’s comments on X.
While there may be some concern about Musk redirecting the AI focus away from Tesla, Ives believes that the entrepreneur and the board will do what is best for investors.
“At the end of the day we believe the Board and Musk will be able to resolve this 25% issue over the next 3-6 months and ultimately all AI initiatives will be kept within Tesla,” said Ives in a post on X. “This dynamic will cause some noise but it’s a process we expect Musk/Board to manage for shareholders.”
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