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

Climate Change Denier Running an EV Company

[Anonymous Coward]

...Grabs popcorn...

Re:Climate Change Denier Running an EV Company

[Anonymous Coward]

Could be the right move. Given papa's power, in short time you'd be hearing the party line change to how they never denied climate change and EVs are great. Anything else is just lies, all lies, from the fake news media led by CNN and NYT.

Huh

[Der Huhn Teufel]

I guess we'll find out what happens when you replace crazy with evil.

Well, there goes Tesla

[DanDD]

A similar thing happened to Aptera Motors. A great little company with lots of potential (queue the electricity jokes), but they never reached their potential - all due to the idiots on the board.

So sad. If Murdoch does take the reins, I predict Elon will resign as CEO, and simply keep his spot on the board.

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).