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Businesses The Almighty Buck

James Murdoch In Line To Replace Musk As Tesla Chairman, Says Report [Update] (reuters.com) 141

Posted by BeauHD from the next-in-line dept.
21st Century Fox CEO James Murdoch is the lead candidate to replace Elon Musk as Tesla chairman, the Financial Times reported today. The company has until November 13 to appoint an independent chairman of the board, part of settlements reached last month between Tesla, Musk and U.S. regulators in the wake of Musk tweeting in August that he had secured funding to take the company private. Reuters reports: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which said the statement was fraudulent, allowed the billionaire to retain his role as CEO while stripping him of his chairmanship and imposing a penalty of $20 million on each party. Murdoch, who is a nonexecutive director of Tesla, has signaled he wants the job, the report said. The son of Fox mogul Rupert Murdoch, he joined Tesla's board in July 2017 after years of work with media companies. He has no experience in manufacturing and has never led a company that makes cars or electric vehicles.

Murdoch currently serves on the boards of 21st Century Fox and News Corp. He stepped down from the board of Sky Plc on Tuesday following the completion of Comcast Corp's takeover of the broadcaster. Glass Lewis research director Courteney Keatinge said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that while Murdoch's departure from Sky could alleviate some concerns, the Tesla chairmanship would still require a big time commitment as the company faces pressures on many fronts. Update: In a tweet late Wednesday, Musk said Financial Times' report was inaccurate.
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James Murdoch In Line To Replace Musk As Tesla Chairman, Says Report [Update] More

James Murdoch In Line To Replace Musk As Tesla Chairman, Says Report [Update]

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  • Murdoch (Score:4, Funny)

    by mentil ( 1748130 ) on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @07:25PM (#57458584)

    Murdoc is replacing MacGyver? He gonna install Blofeld as CEO next?

  • Climate Change Denier Running an EV Company (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @07:31PM (#57458614)

    ...Grabs popcorn...

    • Re:Climate Change Denier Running an EV Company (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @07:36PM (#57458628)
      Could be the right move. Given papa's power, in short time you'd be hearing the party line change to how they never denied climate change and EVs are great. Anything else is just lies, all lies, from the fake news media led by CNN and NYT.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        We never said climate change wasn't happening. We always said it was Obama's fault. Because he didn't use the Paris accords to shut down China.

        That was easy.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Or he sells off everything of value to boost profits the first quarter and then leaves.

      • Could be the right move. Given papa's power, in short time you'd be hearing the party line change to how they never denied climate change and EVs are great. Anything else is just lies, all lies, from the fake news media led by CNN and NYT.

        We're at war with Eastasia. We've always been at war with Eastasia.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This seems like another 4chan fakeout.

      In all honesty, the Murdoch's profit-driven-lack-of-morals style business dealings is both a blessing and a curse, because it allowed some very risky (for the time) things to get onto TV (eg The Simpsons, Married with Children) , but also allowed entertainment to be disguised as news (eg Fox News), and without any kind of rules to govern how news is to be factually true and free of editorializing, it's why Fox is such a shitshow, and people who don't have the time to fa

  • Huh (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Der Huhn Teufel ( 688813 ) on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @07:44PM (#57458654)
    I guess we'll find out what happens when you replace crazy with evil.

    • RIP Tesla. (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It was nice while it lasted, I guess.

      Now the profit leeches got them, just like they destroy everything else.

      Who cares if humanity advances? Who cares about happiness? Gotta make a quick buck. Not earn. Make It is all that matters. No reason, other than circular logic and "growth".
      You know... that thing that is the opposite of stability, and hence the opposite of survival, and predominantly the domain of deadly explosions and deadly pathogens. (The not very successful ones, that kill themselves in the proc

      • Re:RIP Tesla. (Score:5, Informative)

        by Rei ( 128717 ) on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @09:49PM (#57459138) Homepage

        Musk has tweeted that the article is incorrect [twitter.com]. Good. James Murdoch tries to paint himself as the "renegade son" who rejects his father's philosophy, while actually sharing a large chunk of it, and engaging in just as scummy tactics (see the BBC phone hacking scandal.... the resulting investigation of which basically declared James as unfit to manage a corporate board).

        • Well, he is already a board member, so apparently Tesla likes the guy. I agree with your analysis of the him though: I think he fits in quite nicely at Tesla.
        • So if Musk is right and the Financial Times is wrong, will the SEC investigate the Financial Times for spreading false information that affected the stock price?
  • Interesting. Rupert Murdoch's son is heading a company which is heavily invested by the Saudis. Sounds like a company worth investing in with those fine fellows on board.

  • Makes sense (Score:3)

    by DMJC ( 682799 ) on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @07:47PM (#57458670)
    Dad's gonna bump off some time soon. Someone has to ensure the trust fund stays full of cash.

  • Well, there goes Tesla (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DanDD ( 1857066 ) on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @07:48PM (#57458678)

    A similar thing happened to Aptera Motors [wikipedia.org]. A great little company with lots of potential (queue the electricity jokes), but they never reached their potential - all due to the idiots on the board.

    So sad. If Murdoch does take the reins, I predict Elon will resign as CEO, and simply keep his spot on the board.

    • So you are saying this is a revolting development?

    • > they never reached their potential - all due to the idiots on the board.

      In this case it was Elon Musk who was the idiot, because he opened his mouth & violated the law. (He then demonstrated further idiocy by rejecting the U.S. offer to drop the case in exchange for a small fine.)

    • > all due to the idiots on the board.

      Specifically, those idiots spending time and resources developing a vehicle with niche appeal and limited utility. It might've been hyper efficient but it had the worst qualities of a car combined with the worst qualities of a motorcycle but the benefits of neither.
      =Smidge=

    • Musk won't resign as CEO. He wants to be fired, so that he can be an "outsider" when Tesla crashes and burns in a few months, because that way he can lie to his cultists "I could have saved it". Musk's been trying to get fired for almost two months now. The problem is, the board is made of his cronies, who want to take the blame for his "management" about as much as he wants.

  • You know what will make these cars better? If we add this cool new invention called the "Internal Combustion Engine"!

  • Why do they think that (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt AT nerdflat DOT com> on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @08:06PM (#57458738) Journal

    ... Musk supposedly commited fraud. As far as I can understand he said one day that he had secured funding to make the company private. This spooked a lot of people, but there's no indication he was trying to lie about it.

    Then, by my understanding, a whole shitpile of people basically begged him not to go through with it because it would be catatsrophically stupid.

    In the aftermath of that social onslaught, Musk apparently had some sense knocked into him and so he announced he would not be making Tesla private This doesn't mean he necessarily ever lied, but had definitely spoken far too hastily, because it was not something that had apparently thought through.

    But again.... how is any of this fraud?

    Stupid as shit, sure.... and it's only fair there should be consequences for that, but fraud?

    Fraud requires an intent, or at least a probable intent, to deceive, and I just didn't see that coming from him on this point. He had no incentive to deceive anyone about taking Tesla private... he had his reasons, and presumably they weren't good enough in the big picture to justify actually doing that. That just means he made a mistake, it doesn't mean he lied about it.

    Again though, mistakes can reasonably have consequences, but hanging the term "fraud" on it is, I think, a pretty gross mischaracterization of what actually occurred.

    • He did it to "get" the shorts. He never had funding secured like he said. You can't just tweet out whatever you want when you are a officer of a public company. Total fraud, but Musk is the Trump of the EV world so it was expected.

    • Re:Why do they think that (Score:5, Informative)

      by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @08:16PM (#57458786)

      He said he was "considering" taking the company private, "funding secured", "all that is needed is shareholder approval".
      Shareholders told him they didn't approve so he dropped the plan before it even got to a vote.
      The only uncertainty was the "funding secured" part. Depends on your definition of "secured". Supposedly the Saudis have been hounding him to buy the company for a few years. People assume the funding was from the Saudis and they have the money.

      • The claim of secured funding was never substantiated.

        • The claim of secured funding was never substantiated.

          It was never found unsubstantiated in court, either, because there was never a case. There was only a settlement, which did not require Musk or Tesla to admit guilt.

          • There was a case, which was settled, with Musk and Tesla accepting a considerable fine and concessions to SEC demands.

            $40m is a non-trivial amount of legal fees, and the fact that this settlement was accepted is a very good indication of the estimate the lawyers gave to Tesla management about the likelihood of success of challenging SEC in court.

            Incidentally "substantiating" the claim has the same likelihood.

            And it is apparently indistinguishable from a zero.

      • Re:Why do they think that (Score:5, Informative)

        by Actually, I do RTFA ( 1058596 ) on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @10:18PM (#57459214)

        Even if the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund did tell Musk they wanted to buy, do you think they offered 420? Because otherwise it's like if Bill Gates keeps asking to buy my house. I cannot say "I have a solid deal to sell my house for a billion dollars." Him wanting to buy it and having that much money does not mean he wants to buy it at that price

        Depends on your definition of "secured".

        It's not a linguistic argument. When you claim funding is secured, and you are talking about a financial transaction, you are making a very specific claim. If it had been secured, Musk would have sat with the SEC in a room, showed them the documentation, and been done. He wouldn't have taken a plea for no reason.

        • They actually gave him an offer of 419, but he rounded up to 420 because the 420 reference amused him.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

      .As far as I can understand he said one day that he had secured funding to make the company private... there's no indication he was trying to lie about it.

      He claimed he had a specific deal, at a specific price, at a specific point in the negotiation process where it only required shareholder approval. I thought the SEC investigated and found no indication of any such pending deal.

      I agree with 110010001000 that he made it up completely to try and hurt the short sellers. Had he succeeded, it might have actually been worth the risk of being removed as chairman. It might have actually caused such deals to materialize. Maybe he just gambled poorly. Maybe he

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by mark-t ( 151149 )

        I agree with 110010001000 that he made it up completely to try and hurt the short sellers.

        Do you have some evidence to the effect that this was his probable incentive?

        Because from everything I've read, this was just an example of a man who spoke too hastily about something that everybody freaked out about. There is precisely zero evidence that he ever actually intended to defraud anyone. The fact that people may have lost money over it might certainly be his fault, but that doesn't mean he ever intende

        • Musk has Enron-like hate for short sellers. The CEO of Enron used to tell Enron employees that Enron was under attack "just like America's under attack by terrorism." Musk says very similar things about short sellers. It isn't a surprise made that Tweet.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You do not understand U.S. law, regardless of the length of your post.

    • Fraud is clearly characterized. The complaint spells it all out:
      https://www.sec.gov/litigation... [sec.gov]

      There was no term sheet. No 8-Ks were filed. The Saudis and VW denied they were in any specific talks. The tweet was solely intended to force shorts to cover.

    • The SEC wants to make an example of him so other CEOs don't do the same thing.

      Whether or not he committed 'fraud' by normal English usage is irrelevant: there are a series of highly specific laws CEOs must follow, and it takes a lot of domain specific knowledge for even a lawyer to figure out if he actually broke the law. Unless you have that domain specific knowledge, it's not worth arguing about whether he broke the law or not.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by mark-t ( 151149 )

        IANAL, but I do know that the legal definition of "fraud" does entail actually having an *intent* to deceive.

        Now obviously proving intent in a court of law can be problematic, but you can sometimes prove that there is probable intent.

        So, what evidence exists that might show probable intent to cause harm that couldn't also be far more easily explained as the actions of someone who was simply overstressed, and starting to make bad decisions?

        Time off from being chairperson will probably be good for the

  • Maybe with those two independent seats you've got to put people in, you consider someone with experience running a manufacturing or logistics operation, which seem to be the two things Tesla really needs, and right now.

    Maybe that person will have a friend that can act as a Chief Operating Officer, who also has manufacturing and / or logistics experience. Bonus points if they have experience in the automotive industry with actually making and delivering cars at volume.

    Just a thought.

  • Fox News buys Tesla? I have no further interest in this story.

  • Great they'll ruin Tesla the way they ruined Australia's NBN

  • That would imply that Tesla cars would not be an option for many any more.

  • At best, he's a typical corp hopper.. exchanges long term interests for quick profits. At worse, this is somebody who's going to do the bidding of Tesla's competitors and ruin the company.

    The real question is -- how much damage can he do to Tesla Motors before Musk can return, in 3 years.. This seems similar to Steve Jobs being kicked out of Apple for a long time... then Apple revived when he returned, just before otherwise inevitable bankruptcy. The difference is that Musk still has a major role in the

  • Does anyone else get the feeling that if this news is true, it's Stephen Elop at Nokia all over again?

  • Murdoch? (Score:3)

    by TJHook3r ( 4699685 ) on Thursday October 11, 2018 @12:13PM (#57461322)
    That family has an incredibly poor record in the UK. I would venture to say that his corporate strategy is 'Be Evil'.

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