Musk, who lost a large portion of Tesla shares through the acquisition of “If I don’t get 25% of the shares, I will turn it outside of the AI business”

“It’s inconvenient not to have a 25% stake” Elon Musk insists on the need to secure a stake
After the Twitter acquisition battle, the stake decreased to 13%, and X is in ‘jeopardy’
Musk, who negotiates with AI as the future food source, reminds us of 'Altman's expulsion' from the industry

Elon Musk, CEO of American electric vehicle company Tesla (NAS:TSLA), has expressed his desire to secure additional shares in Tesla. On the 15th (local time), Musk posted on his social network “If I can’t, I prefer to make (AI) products outside of Tesla,” he wrote.

Musk asks for additional equity, mentioning AI business

According to Tesla’s last financial report in the third quarter of last year, Musk holds about 13% of Tesla’s shares. He owns 411 million shares out of the company’s 3.19 billion common shares. However, Musk expressed his dissatisfaction through the They even threatened that companies other than Tesla would develop new AI products if equity was not secured.

At Tesla’s first AI Day event in 2021, Musk expressed his intention to expand related businesses, saying, “Tesla wants to show that it is not just an electric vehicle manufacturer, but a leader in the AI ​​field.” Currently, Tesla is developing the humanoid robot Optimus and has also invested more than $1 billion (approximately 1.33 trillion won) in the Dojo supercomputer project. In effect, Musk has taken the AI ​​business that Tesla was fostering as a ‘future business’ as a ‘hostage’.

However, the industry believes that Musk’s stake will not be easily expanded. This is because a significant number of shareholders are currently antipathetic to Musk. Tesla shareholders judged Musk’s salary in 2018 to be excessive and sued the board of directors who approved it for breach of fiduciary duty. In November last year, Jerry Brachman, president of investment company First American Trust, a Tesla shareholder, requested the board of directors to suspend CEO Elon Musk based on his anti-Semitic actions.

In a confident takeover battle, both X and Tesla lost in the end

Musk’s stake has decreased since 2022. At the time, Musk was selling a large number of Tesla stocks to raise funds for the $44 billion Twitter acquisition. The first sale was in April 2022, and the sale size was approximately $8 billion (approximately 10.9 trillion won). At the time, Musk declared that he had “no further sales plans,” but later sold an additional $7 billion (approximately KRW 9.5 trillion) worth of stock in August and $3.95 billion (approximately KRW 5.4 trillion) in November. did.

The last sale was in December 2022 for $3.58 billion (about 4.7 trillion won). Afterwards, Musk’s stake in Tesla fell to 13.4%. Musk, who was reluctant to sell his shares due to concerns about weakening his influence within Tesla, took a kind of ‘gamble’. However, after the Musk acquisition, X’s operating situation is not very easy. This is because it was revealed that Musk’s ‘anti-Semitism controversy’ had poured cold water on Twitter’s advertising business, its main source of income. Although it is impossible to know clearly the quarterly performance of

According to the New York Times, major clients including Netflix ($3 million), Airbnb ($1 million), and Uber ($800,000) withdrew their advertising in X after Musk’s anti-Semitic actions. In addition, 200 companies, including IBM, Apple, Disney, Coca-Cola, and Microsoft, turned their backs on X. The New York Times reported that more than 100 of these companies have already cut off advertising, and dozens more are considering stopping advertising. In addition, last month,

Negotiations based on ‘AI technology’, will it work?

While X’s growth was sluggish, Musk belatedly insisted on recovering his shares. While the overall market is in turmoil due to Musk’s sudden remarks putting AI at the forefront, some are recalling the current situation where the AI ​​business has become a ‘hostage’ and are reminiscent of the expulsion of Sam Altman from openAI. In November of last year, Open AI’s board of directors decided on the 17th to dismiss Altman on the grounds that ‘he was not confident in his management ability and was not honest in his communication.’ The dismissal was so sudden that even Microsoft, the majority shareholder, heard the news just before the announcement.

Open AI employees strongly opposed the board’s announcement of dismissal. When news broke that Altman and co-founder Greg Brookman would be joining Microsoft to lead a new AI research team, a series of employees threatened to move to Microsoft along with them. Even Microsoft, the majority shareholder, expressed its willingness to accept Open AI employees who expressed their intention to move to Microsoft. Open AI is at risk of losing all of its valuable AI experts in an instant.

In the end, the board of directors relented after five days and announced the partial reorganization of the board and Altman’s return to the CEO position. This is a precedent that clearly shows the effects of ‘threats’ disguised as negotiations with key personnel and businesses at the forefront. Musk has already officially launched the AI ​​startup ‘x.AI’ last year. Last month, it reported to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) the recruitment of x.AI stock investors worth up to $1 billion (approximately KRW 1.315 trillion). In fact, while the ‘external’ foundation to transfer Tesla’s AI business has been established, the industry is paying close attention to future changes in the conflict situation.