James Murdoch In Line To Replace Musk As Tesla Chairman, Says Report [Update] (reuters.com)

21st Century Fox CEO James Murdoch is the lead candidate to replace Elon Musk as Tesla chairman, the Financial Times reported today. The company has until November 13 to appoint an independent chairman of the board, part of settlements reached last month between Tesla, Musk and U.S. regulators in the wake of Musk tweeting in August that he had secured funding to take the company private. Reuters reports: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which said the statement was fraudulent, allowed the billionaire to retain his role as CEO while stripping him of his chairmanship and imposing a penalty of $20 million on each party. Murdoch, who is a nonexecutive director of Tesla, has signaled he wants the job, the report said. The son of Fox mogul Rupert Murdoch, he joined Tesla's board in July 2017 after years of work with media companies. He has no experience in manufacturing and has never led a company that makes cars or electric vehicles.

Murdoch currently serves on the boards of 21st Century Fox and News Corp. He stepped down from the board of Sky Plc on Tuesday following the completion of Comcast Corp's takeover of the broadcaster. Glass Lewis research director Courteney Keatinge said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that while Murdoch's departure from Sky could alleviate some concerns, the Tesla chairmanship would still require a big time commitment as the company faces pressures on many fronts. Update: In a tweet late Wednesday, Musk said Financial Times' report was inaccurate.

Comments

Re:Why do they think that

[mspohr]

He said he was "considering" taking the company private, "funding secured", "all that is needed is shareholder approval".
Shareholders told him they didn't approve so he dropped the plan before it even got to a vote.
The only uncertainty was the "funding secured" part. Depends on your definition of "secured". Supposedly the Saudis have been hounding him to buy the company for a few years. People assume the funding was from the Saudis and they have the money.

Re:RIP Tesla.

[Rei]

Musk has tweeted that the article is incorrect. Good. James Murdoch tries to paint himself as the "renegade son" who rejects his father's philosophy, while actually sharing a large chunk of it, and engaging in just as scummy tactics (see the BBC phone hacking scandal.... the resulting investigation of which basically declared James as unfit to manage a corporate board).

Re:Why do they think that

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Even if the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund did tell Musk they wanted to buy, do you think they offered 420? Because otherwise it's like if Bill Gates keeps asking to buy my house. I cannot say "I have a solid deal to sell my house for a billion dollars." Him wanting to buy it and having that much money does not mean he wants to buy it at that price

Depends on your definition of "secured".

It's not a linguistic argument. When you claim funding is secured, and you are talking about a financial transaction, you are making a very specific claim. If it had been secured, Musk would have sat with the SEC in a room, showed them the documentation, and been done. He wouldn't have taken a plea for no reason.

Re: RIP Tesla.

[Rei]

Tesla never claimed that the NHTSA gave them higher than five stars. They claimed that the NHTSA data shows that it has the lowest probability of injury of any car ever tested. Which is a fact whether you like it or not.