In a letter Thursday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether Tesla violated regulations regarding board independence for public companies.
“In recent months, new evidence has come to light that deepens our concerns that Tesla’s board lacks independence from Mr. Musk,” Sen. Warren wrote in a letter to SEC Chairman Gary Gensler. “Mr. Musk is using his control over the board for personal gain.”
The Massachusetts Democratic Party argued that the board failed to address potential misappropriation of Tesla’s resources and conflicts of interest arising from Musk’s concurrent positions at Tesla and Twitter (now Company X).
She described Musk’s $56 billion compensation package as “incalculable.”
Tesla did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
“Senator Cullen’s main economic and tax advisor is the father of SBF (Sam Bankman Fried, who was the head of the bankrupt cryptocurrency company FTX). I think some of this may be coming from him. I think so,” Musk said in a post on social network X.
Warren also said the board would not take action to address shareholder concerns after Musk threatened earlier this year to divert AI product development away from Tesla unless he had about 25% of the company’s voting rights. He also emphasized that there was no such thing.
