‘The Nothing of Tesla’: Elon Musk deletes his Tesla job titles after being stripped of chairmanship
Tesla founder Elon Musk had deleted his job titles at the car giant just to “see what would happen”.
The stunt, announced on Twitter, comes after Musk recently agreed to step down as chairman of the electric car manufacturer to prevent further action from a US regulator.
He announced: “Deleted my Tesla titles last week to see what would happen. I’m now the Nothing of Tesla. Seems fine so far.”
He later tweeted that he would be keeping one job title: “Legally required officers of a corporation are president, treasurer & secretary. Guess I have to keep 1st one or it will confuse the authorities.”
Deleted my Tesla titles last week to see what would happen. I’m now the Nothing of Tesla. Seems fine so far.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 29, 2018
Legally required officers of a corporation are president, treasurer & secretary. Guess I have to keep 1st one or it will confuse the authorities.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 29, 2018
Musk’s biography on the Tesla website describes him as “co-founder and CEO”. Reuters reported that this page had previously referred to Musk as chairman, product architect and CEO.
US regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) agreed a settlement with Musk on 29 September that saw him step down as chair for at least three years.
The settlement brought an end to an SEC probe into a tweet Musk posted in August suggesting that he had secured funding for a buyout of Tesla for $420 a share and would be taking it private.
The announcement led to the share price increasing and the SEC filing a complaint that Musk had “neither secured a commitment of funding from any source, nor confirmed investor support.”
The regulator also said that the price was arrived at “because of its significance in marijuana culture, and [he] thought his girlfriend would be amused by it”.
An agreement was reached whereby Musk would step down a chairman, remain as chief executive and pay a $20m (£15.7m) fine.
Additionally, Tesla was fined $20m and the board was told that it needed to implement procedures for monitoring Musk’s communications with investors, including on Twitter.
Tesla announced its best-ever quarterly results last week, with a net profit of $311m in the third quarter of 2018, rising from a loss of $619m in the previous year.