Elon Musk recommended a possible successor for Tesla CEO, board director says

• James Murdoch testified that Elon Musk recognized a possible successor for the position of Tesla CEO.
• Murdoch, a Tesla board director, made the remark throughout a trial over Tesla’s pay bundle for Musk.
• He didn’t specify who Musk had recommended, however stated Musk had recognized them in the previous few months.

Elon Musk has recommended a possible successor who might fill his position as CEO of Tesla, in keeping with the electric-car maker’s board director, James Murdoch.

Murdoch made the feedback on Wednesday throughout his testimony in a trial concerning a shareholder lawsuit towards Tesla and Musk over the CEO’s $50 billion compensation bundle.

In response to a query over whether or not Musk has ever recognized anyone as a possible successor, Murdoch stated the billionaire “truly has,” however solely within the “previous few months.” 

A Tesla spokesperson didn’t reply to a request for remark from Insider forward of publication.

Within the recorded deposition, which was performed on the trial, Murdoch stated Musk has by no means recommended he is likely to be imminently leaving Tesla or lowering his involvement. Nonetheless, throughout his stay testimony, Murdoch provided extra info.

“We have had conversations, actually throughout the actually robust occasions right here,” Murdoch stated. “You already know, conversations about his exhaustion, about different issues like that, however no, by no means specific threats.”

Murdoch didn’t give any indication as to who the successor Musk had recommended may need been.

The billionaire has been spending a variety of time working at Twitter in latest weeks. Throughout his earlier testimony on Wednesday, Musk stated that Twitter has taken up a lot of his time, however he’ll quickly have the ability to focus much less on the social media firm.

“There’s an preliminary burst of exercise wanted submit acquisition to reorganize the corporate, however then I’ll scale back my time [committement] to Twitter to search out anyone else to run Twitter over time,” Musk stated.

Throughout his testimony, Musk stated he in the end does not need to be CEO of any firm and sees himself extra as an engineer than a businessman.

“My CEO position at SpaceX and in addition at Tesla is much less about CEO, however quite that I’m the one driving the know-how,” Musk stated. “I’m answerable for the engineering of the rockets, and for the know-how within the automotive that makes it profitable.”

Musk is dealing with a lawsuit from Tesla shareholder Richard Tornetta over his $50 billion Tesla compensation bundle. Within the lawsuit, Tornetta argues that Musk and the automaker breached their fiduciary duties by awarding Musk a pay bundle that was “past the bounds of affordable judgment.” Tesla has argued that the bundle was essential to safe Musk’s concentrate on Tesla.