Elon Musk keeps harping on the size of his stake in Tesla.

“I don’t want to control it, but if I have so little influence at the company at this stage, I could be voted out by some random shareholder advisory firm,” Musk said during an earnings call on Wednesday.

Tesla’s CEO called out proxy advisers Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services — which he jokingly referred to as the extremist group Isis — claiming they were infiltrated by “activists” with “strange ideas”.

Musk owns about 13% of Tesla and is its biggest and most influential shareholder. Earlier this month, he publicly appealed to the board for another big stock award following his decision to unload almost US$40-billion in stock to pay taxes and help fund his purchase of Twitter, the social media platform he renamed X.

Many bullish investors see Tesla’s massive valuation as justified by its potential to become a leader in artificial intelligence and robotics. Musk has said that without at least a 25% stake in the company, he’ll build AI and robotics products elsewhere. He spent much of the earnings call talking about these new opportunities rather than the slowing growth and shrinking profit margins of its predominant EV business.

Musk said one way to get his stake to 25% could be to create a dual class of shares akin to those at companies like Facebook owner Meta Platforms. He called the dual-class structure “ideal” and said he wasn’t looking for “additional economics”.

Read: Musk waves goodbye to Tesla’s growth targets

As for the 25% level, “that’s not so much that I could control the company, even if I go bonkers”, he said. “But it’s enough that I have a strong influence.”

Tesla’s board is awaiting a US court ruling on a case brought by a shareholder who alleges directors failed to exercise independence from Musk as they drew up his $55-billion performance award in 2018.  — Esha Dey and Dana Hull, (c) 2024 Bloomberg LP

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