Published , by TJ Denzer
Published , by TJ Denzer
Elon Musk is a well-paid man, especially out of Tesla’s pockets, and that has gotten him into legal hot water as of late. However, the Tesla CEO claims he doesn’t want the role at any company, including Twitter. Testifying during a lawsuit against Tesla that alleges excessive executive compensation for Elon Musk, he defended his compensation while also claiming that he has little interest in the CEO role of any company and would rather focus on engineering.
Elon Musk shared these sentiments in recent testimony in the lawsuit from Tesla shareholder Richard J. Tornetta against Musk and the Tesla company, as reported by CNBC. Tornetta alleges that Musk’s executive compensation is excessive and the Tesla Board of Directors failed its fiduciary duties by granting said compensation. Musk claimed that his duties at any of his companies go well beyond a business role and that he would rather be considered an engineer than a CEO.
“At SpaceX it’s really that I’m responsible for the engineering of the rockets and Tesla for the technology in the car that makes it successful,” Musk said in his testimony. “So, CEO is often viewed as somewhat of a business focused role but in reality, my role is much more that of an engineer developing technology and making sure that we develop breakthrough technologies and that we have a team of incredible engineers who can achieve those goals.”
Musk would go on to say that he’s not particularly interested in continuing to lead Twitter either, but instead is on the lookout for someone to lead the platform for him.
“I expect to reduce my time at Twitter and find somebody else to run Twitter over time,” Musk claimed.
Indeed, Twitter has been a chaotic affair for Elon Musk, which has seemingly included conflicts of interest. Earlier this week it was reported that SpaceX was buying ads on Twitter. Meanwhile, Musk also seemed to dump around $4 billion USD in shares of Tesla even after claiming he had no plans to sell.
It will be interesting to see if Elon Musk holds to his word to ease off of the reins of Twitter once he finds a suitable lead to run it. Nonetheless, it doesn’t look like he’s done being CEO of any of his current companies anytime soon. Stay tuned as we continue to follow for further updates.