Elon Musk demands at least 25% stake in Tesla before fulfilling AI goal: ‘I can’t be overturned’
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he would be uncomfortable growing the automaker to be a leader in artificial intelligence and robotics without having at least 25% voting control of the company, nearly double his current stake.
Musk said unless he was awarded more stock in the world’s most valuable carmaker that was “enough to be influential but not so much that I can’t be overturned,” he would prefer to build products outside of the electric-vehicle manufacturer in a post to his social media site X on Monday
Musk – the world’s richest person with a net worth of $206 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index – currently owns 13% in the company.
Should the board meet Musk’s demand, they’d be agreeing to give him a chunk of Tesla shares worth more than $80 billion.
Musk previously had a larger stake in Tesla, but sold roughly $7 billion worth of the company’s stock to raise capital to fund his $44 billion acquisition of the company formerly known as Twitter in October 2022.
In a separate post on X on Monday, Musk said he would be fine with a dual-class share structure to achieve his goal of getting 25% voting control, but was told it was impossible after Tesla’s initial public offering.
“It’s weird that a crazy multi-class share structure like Meta has, which gives the next 20+ generations of Zuckerbergs control, is fine pre-IPO, but even a reasonable dual-class is not allowed post-IPO,” he said, referring to the Facebook parent’s founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Companies with dual-class structures have two or more types of shares with different voting rights – usually one with greater voting rights for founders or early investors and another for other shareholders with less voting power.
Tesla’s shares were flat on Tuesday following Musk’s comments.
Musk didn’t specify what AI-powered products he wants to produce, but showed off a robot named Optimus which, per a video the billionaire posted to X, can fold a T-shirt.
Musk has said that the robot – which can also reportedly walk, talk and boil eggs – will cost “much less than $20,000” when it’s released at a later, undisclosed date.
The 52-year-old has also long touted Tesla’s partially automated “Full Self-Driving” software and its prototype humanoid robots.
The Austin-based company, however, generates most of its revenue from its automotive business.
In the latest quarter, Tesla delivered a record number of electric vehicles, beating market estimates and meeting its 2023 target of 1.8 million vehicles as a year-end sales push paid off.
Though Tesla delivered 494,989 vehicles in the fourth quarter, it fell short of the 526,409 fully electric vehicles China’s BYD, which many analysts say is Tesla’s main rival, handed over.
Representatives for Tesla did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
With Post wires
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