Back in September, Elon Musk was hit with an SEC lawsuit, over a tweet he made in August. In this tweet, Musk contemplated taking Tesla private at $420 a share and stated that he had the funding secured in order to make such a move. After this tweet, the market had a significant surge, and Tesla’s stock price jumped by around 6%. Obviously, Tesla has not gone private, and the SEC accused Musk of securities fraud and misleading investors with his tweets.
A few days later, the SEC announced that Elon Musk had settled the lawsuit at a fairly high cost. Among these constituents, the settlement required Musk to step down as chairman and be replaced by an independent chairman, establish an entirely new committee of independent directors, and add two independent directors to the board. Those two independent directors are Larry Ellison and Kathleen Thompson-Wilson.
Larry Ellison is co-founder, executive chairman, and chief technology officer of Oracle Corporation, and a personal friend of Musk. Ellison himself has stated that Tesla is his second biggest personal investment, and a company insider claims he owns around 3 million shares, which is worth roughly $1 billion.
Kathleen Thompson-Wilson, is a former Kellogg executive, and the current global head of human resources and executive vice president at Walgreens Boots Alliance.
Some have criticized the appointment of Ellison to the board since he is a friend of Musk and the two new members are supposed to be without any serious ties to Musk, but as of now, the appointment stands.
