But that was then.
Ives said he fears that having a beef with Trump will cost the company around $1 trillion opportunity in autonomous vehicles alone. “We believe the board now has to take the bull by the horns,” he wrote.
“Some general guardrails on this front would help everyone involved, including institutional investors, retail investors, Musk himself, the Board, and Tesla employees around the world,” said Ives.
All public company boards have special committees dedicated to specific functions, like executive compensation or oversight of cybersecurity risks. Ives believes Tesla should create a special board oversight committee focused only on Musk and his political ambitions. “The Board cannot control Musk’s donations….but they can have oversight if his political ambitions/endeavors interfere with his role as CEO of Tesla,” Ives wrote.
Rather than reduce Musk’s influence at the company, Ives suggests designing a new incentive-driven pay package that would give the CEO a larger share of the company and up to about 25% of the voting power. “This would also create a framework that potentially Musk could drive Tesla to merge with xAI,” he wrote, referring to Musk’s artificial intelligence data company, “and create one of the most powerful AI companies in the world under one roof over the next 12 to 18 months.” Under Ives’ plan, the hypothetical special committee mentioned above would also oversee the pay package and whether Musk has violated its boundaries.
Tesla did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
“There have been so many ‘Now the board has to do something moments,’ and they have failed every time,” Nell Minow, a corporate governance expert and vice chair of ValueEdge Advisors, also said. “I no longer feel that there is such a thing as ‘Now they have to do something.’”
