Source: Caixin.
①According to a legal document released on Thursday, Tesla shareholders once again sued Musk; ②In the new lawsuit, Tesla shareholders argued that Musk had plundered Tesla by establishing the AI start-up company xAI and transferring Tesla's talent and resources to the new company; ③The shareholders demanded compensation from Musk and transferred all the shares of xAI that he holds to Tesla.
$Tesla (TSLA.US)$The annual shareholder meeting is full of excitement, first with Elon Musk successfully spoiling the surprise of demanding salary, and later with the astonishing big cake he painted -- the Siasun Robot&Automation Optimus that can rake in $1 trillion in profits.
With an enthusiastic atmosphere in the meeting room, there were also ups and downs outside. On the same day that Tesla shareholders' votes were due, the U.S. State of Delaware released a filing stating that several Tesla shareholders filed a lawsuit alleging that Musk violated his fiduciary duty to Tesla shareholders.
The shareholders who sued are Cleveland Bakers and Truckers Retirement Fund, Daniel Hazen and Michael Giampietro, who claimed that Musk's funding of x.ai, an AI start-up, and the migration of Tesla's AI employees and resources from Tesla to x.ai were acts of plundering Tesla.
These shareholders also sued the Tesla board of directors, believing that their indifference to Musk's behavior seriously damaged Tesla's interests. They demanded that Musk pay compensations and transfer all of x.ai's shares held to Tesla.
Lawsuits are coming endlessly.
Shareholders suing Musk for many years believe that he has been trying to position Tesla as a robot and AI giant instead of an auto manufacturer. This view had driven up Tesla's stock price and eventually placed its market cap above the sum of top auto manufacturers.
However, on the other hand, Musk has been transferring scarce talents and resources from Tesla to x.ai, and raising billions of dollars for the start-up by boasting that x.ai can access Tesla's AI data.
To date, x.ai has released Grok, a chatbot which can be used through Musk's social platform X, but is only available to advanced subscribers. This has made x.ai look more like a new patch on Musk's business canvas, rather than an extension of Tesla's development.
The plaintiffs also cited some recent reports indicating that Musk had ordered thousands of Nvidia GPU chips originally intended for Tesla's business, but ultimately used them for x.ai. Musk responded by saying that Tesla lacked the ability to accept Nvidia GPUs because its factory in Texas was not yet completed.
This is not the first time that Musk has been sued by Tesla shareholders. The previous ‘pay raise case’ emerged from Tesla shareholders' belief that the exorbitant compensation package (valued at 56 billion USD) that Musk promised himself in 2018 was unreasonable. Earlier this week, shareholders sued Musk again for making billions of dollars by selling Tesla's stock using insider information.
The incessant legal disputes reflect the difficult-to-reconcile differences between Musk and Tesla shareholders, and if the new lawsuit succeeds, it could even escalate into a criminal case. It seems that there is no end in sight to the ‘grudge’ between Musk and Tesla.
Editor/tolk