Tesla Adds Two New Independent Directors to Board --update
December 28 2018 - 9:33AM
Dow Jones News
By Rolfe Winkler and Tim Higgins
Tesla Inc. named a pair of new independent directors, including
Oracle Corp. Chairman Larry Ellison, adding a tech-industry
luminary who has been a public booster of the company to a board
that has been under fire for its oversight of Chief Executive Elon
Musk.
Tesla on Friday said that Mr. Ellison and Kathleen
Wilson-Thompson, the global head of human resources for Walgreens
Boots Alliance Inc., had joined its board effective the day before.
Their addition fulfills the terms of Tesla's September agreement
with the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle claims that
Mr. Musk misled investors when he claimed this year to have funding
to take the Silicon Valley car maker private.
The additions bring to 10 the number of active directors on
Tesla's board, which in the past two years has added two other
outsiders to a group stacked with longtime Musk allies. An 11th
director has been on leave since last year. The additions follow
the elevation in November of Robyn Denholm, a veteran finance
executive who joined Tesla's board four years ago, to replace Mr.
Musk as chairman, which fulfilled another requirement of the
regulatory settlement.
Mr. Ellison, who co-founded enterprise software giant Oracle in
1977 and is one of the best known executives in Silicon Valley, has
expressed support for Mr. Musk, disclosing in October that Tesla
was his second largest personal investment. "I'm very close friends
with Elon Musk, and I'm a big investor in Tesla," Mr. Ellison said
in comments at an Oracle analysts' conference in which he defended
the Tesla chief over questions about his management.
Tesla said on Friday that Mr. Ellison had purchased 3 million
shares in Tesla earlier this year.
Ms. Wilson-Thompson was a 17-year veteran of Kellogg Co. before
joining Walgreens in 2010. She serves on two other boards,
including construction materials company Vulcan Materials Co. and
specialty chemicals company Ashland Global Holdings Inc.
Tesla's board said it had conducted a widespread search for the
new directors. "In Larry and Kathleen, we have added a preeminent
entrepreneur and a human resources leader, both of whom have a
passion for sustainable energy," the board said in a statement.
Write to Rolfe Winkler at rolfe.winkler@wsj.com and Tim Higgins
at Tim.Higgins@WSJ.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 28, 2018 09:18 ET (14:18 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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