Jan. 16 (UPI) — Tesla founder Elon Musk went public with his desire to own 25% of the electric vehicles’ shares to grow its artificial intelligence and robotics sector.
Musk, who is already the company’s largest shareholder with a 13% stake, said in comments on X Monday that he would grow the products outside of the company if he is unable to secure the larger share.
“I am uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI and robotics with having 25% voting control,” Musk said on X. “Enough to be influential but not so much that I can’t be overturned. Unless that is the case, I would prefer to build products outside of Telsa.”
Musk went on to say that Tesla is more than an electric vehicle company and its focus should be diversification.
“You don’t seem to understand that Tesla is not one startup, but a dozen,” Musk said. “Simply look at the delta between what Tesla does and GM. As far as stock ownership itself being enough motivation, fidelity, and other similar stakes to me, why don’t they show up for work?”
In his post Monday, Musk also said Tesla’s board is “great” and added the company was holding back on introducing a new compensation plan as a 2018 lawsuit by shareholder Richard Tornetta, alleging that a previous package that granted him billions of dollars in stock had yet to be resolved.
He added, however, that his effort to secure 25% of Tesla stock was “primarily about ensuring the right amount of voting influence” at the company.
“If I have 25%, it means I am influential but can be overridden if twice as many shareholders vote against me versus for me,” he said.
Musk currently holds about 411 million shares of Tesla which has 3.19 billion in common stock outstanding, according to third quarter financial filings.
He previously had a greater share in the company, but dumped nearly 95 million shares of stock worth about $22.93 billion in 2022, largely to facilitate his purchase of X, the social media company then known as Twitter.
At the time, Musk had predicted, that Tesla’s work in AI and robotics would become more valuable to the country than its electric car and automated driving divisions and he late last year described Tesla as “an AI/robotics company” in a post on X.
The company has already spent billions in AI initiatives. Tesla has pumped a significant amount of money into the humanoid prototype robot Optimus and spent more than $1 billion on the self-driving system supercomputer Dojo.
Last November, Musk testified in a trial over his compensation package from Tesla in Delaware. A shareholder sued Musk and Tesla, charging that the Tesla board breached its fiduciary duty, calling Musk’s pay as CEO excessive.