JB Straubel, former chief technical officer of Tesla Motors, speaks during the ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new Supercharger station outside the Tesla Factory on August 16, 2013 in Fremont, California.
Justin Sullivan | beautiful pictures
Tesla has nominated JB Straubel, CEO and founder of e-waste recycling company Redwood Materials, to its eight-member board of directors, according to an announcement. filed with the SEC Thursday. Straubel founded his Carson City, Nevada recycling venture while he was still serving as Tesla’s CTO in 2017 and left the automaker to focus on it in 2019.
Straubel is considered a co-founder of Tesla due to his early technical and operational leadership at Tesla. Joining the company in 2004 — long before Elon Musk took over as CEO — Straubel oversaw the construction of Tesla’s first battery factory outside of Reno, among other things.
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If it wins the shareholder vote, Straubel will replace current Tesla board member Hiromichi Mizuno, who has no plans to run for re-election at the company’s annual shareholder meeting, which is expected on May 16.
Mizuno was previously the investment director of the Japanese government pension fund and a member of the Tesla board of directors since April 2020. Mizuno served as a member of Tesla’s audit committee.
Alongside Straubel, Tesla is nominating CEO Elon Musk and chairman Robyn Denholm for re-election to the board again.
According to its annual report, Tesla is also asking investors to once again approve Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) as the company’s auditor and vote on two different compensation-related issues. Usually for executives.
Only one shareholder proxy proposal will be eligible for a vote in May. Shareholders proposed that Tesla provide a “key people’s risk” report to investors, determining how the company would respond to the departures of key executives for any reason. from retirement to untimely death or disability.
Of particular concern is Tesla’s reliance on CEO Elon Musk. The company has previously and repeatedly stated in its financial filings that it “depends heavily on the services” of Musk.
Since last fall, many Tesla investors have criticized Musk for his decision to sell billions of dollars worth of Tesla shares that led to a $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. Musk appointed himself and remains CEO of the social media platform, and has also authorized senior Tesla employees to work with him there.
Tesla chief James Murdoch testified in court that Musk had secretly discussed a potential successor to lead the electric vehicle business with him. But some investors are still looking for answers about key person risk.
Authorization proposal notes: “According to Morgan Stanley’s 2018 report, in 2017, 59 S&P 500 CEOs left their companies, and these companies subsequently underperformed the market by 11% over the past 12 years. next month.”
Tesla’s board of directors is asking shareholders to vote against key person risk reporting. They wrote against the proposal, arguing that disclosures requested by shareholders – such as identifying the executives most important to Tesla’s long-term success and who could replace them – will invite competitors to “target and recruit high-value executives from Tesla.”
