Elon Musk WikiCC

Elon Musk is an odd character, to say the least. His erratic behaviour, megalomania and the constant stream of bullshit promises should, by all merit, destroy any company he is attached to. But the opposite is true; these career-ending attributes have created an air of mystique around him, painting him out to be a misunderstood genius years ahead of his time, and as such, a fever pitch of hysteria surrounds him, Tesla, SpaceX and all his other forgotten side projects. But occasionally, this fog clears, and we get to see the true Elon. Such a mask-off moment happened recently when Musk effectively threatened to dramatically devalue Tesla unless he is given $81 billion worth of Tesla stock for free Yeah, lets unpack that.

In a recent Tweet (or Xeet? Change it back Elon, X is a dumb name), the Tesla CEO said that he would be uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI & robotics without having ~25% voting control. Enough to be influential, but not so much that I cant be overturned. Unless that is the case, I would prefer to build products outside of Tesla. You dont seem to understand that Tesla is not one startup but a dozen. Simply look at the delta between what Tesla does and GM. Why this demand? Well, Musk also stated that the current structure leaves Tesla vulnerable to a takeover by dubious interests, and as he sees his AI development at Tesla as highly risky, he wants more control to avoid AI disasters in the future. More on that in a second.

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But, once upon a time, Musk had close to this level of voting control. In 2014, he owned roughly 22% of Tesla stocks and therefore had 22% of the voting rights as Tesla has a single-class share structure, which Musk decided on when he took the company public (remember that for later). But he has sold billions of dollars worth of this stock over time, most notably to pay for his inane $44 billion purchase of Twitter. Now, Musk has only around a 13% stake in Tesla, which still makes him the majority shareholder and one of the wealthiest men in the world, but apparently, it is not enough.

The rest is here:
Musk Is Holding Tesla To Ransom. What is his real motivation? | by Will Lockett | Predict | Jan, 2024 - Medium