The World’s Top Wealth Fund Voted Against Musk As Chair At Tesla

The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, Norway’s US$1-trillion Government Pension Fund Global, voted in favor of a proposal to separate Elon Musk’s chairman and CEO roles at Tesla at the EV maker’s shareholders’ meeting on Tuesday.

The biggest wealth fund in the world—which holds 1.4 percent of all listed companies worldwide and had 0.48 percent in Tesla at end-2017—voted for a shareholder proposal to require that Tesla’s chair be an independent director. Tesla’s management had recommended shareholders to vote against that proposal.

Tesla’s shareholders were asked to vote on a proposal by one stockholder that the company’s chair be an independent director, not Elon Musk, who has been chairman since 2004 and is also the chief executive officer.

Jing Zhao has notified Tesla that he is the beneficial owner of twelve (12) shares of the company’s common stock and intends to present a Shareholder Proposal on Board Chairman Independence, Tesla said in a proxy statement to its shareholders at the end of April, recommending them to vote against this proposal.

The world’s biggest wealth fund voted contrary to the management recommendation on this item, but it was in the minority, as the majority of Tesla shareholders shot down the proposal to separate Elon Musk’s roles at Tesla “by a wide margin”, the company’s General Counsel Todd Maron said at the meeting.

The vote to split Musk’s roles was not the first time that the Norwegian wealth fund has voted against a management recommendation at Tesla. In March this year, for example, the fund voted against a management proposal and management recommendation to approve a stock option grant to Elon Musk.

At the Tuesday annual stockholders’ meeting, after the voting on the proposals, Musk took to the stage and said that it was “quite likely” that Tesla could start building 5,000 Model 3s a week by the end of this month.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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