The car manufacturing company announced last Friday that they plan to make some future changes to their board of directors, saying that the changes will allow the board to “operate more nimbly and efficiently.” Out of the four directors that will be stepping down there’s Brad Buss, a director since 2009, and Linda Johnson Rice, the chairman and CEO of Johnson Publishing who joined the board in 2017, both will be leaving at the annual meeting in June.
The other two board members that will be leaving are two early Tesla investors, Antonio Gracias and Stephen Jurvetson, who is a venture capitalist considered a close ally to Musk, and also a director at Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX. They both plan to leave next year if shareholders agree to shorten Gracias’ term by a year which was normally over in 2021. The company stated regarding the decision to let some board members go:“Such agreements did not result from any disagreement between Tesla and any of such directors.”
Tesla investors have also been pleading with the company to tighten oversight of CEO Elon Musk after scaring them with his tweets about taking Tesla private. After reaching a settlement on that dispute with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission, now it seems that the SEC is accusing him of violating some of the term of the settlement and is looking to hold him in contempt.
The company’s official statement also said that the board hoped to retain “directors with the current professional and person wherewithal to devote a greater degree of time and focus that may be expected of other public company board members,” as well as achieve “a model of diversity wherein each director offers an expertise and background that is unique to him or her on the Board.” While a new filing stated that the board thinks the remaining member are “poised to lead Tesla with fresh perspectives balanced by deep historical knowledge of our company, while maintaining a wealth of diverse experience and expertise.”
