美国东部时间2024年1月16日下午4：26

作者：蒂姆·莱文

即使对于埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）来说，他断然拒绝了其他CEO所遵循的规则，这也是一个公开的非凡举动。

周一，马斯克在X上要求汽车制造商董事会对特斯拉拥有更多控制权。“我不愿意让特斯拉成为人工智能和机器人技术的领导者，而没有~25%的投票控制权。足以产生影响力，但又不至于让我无法被推翻，“他在他拥有的社交媒体平台上的一篇文章中说。

埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）希望对特斯拉拥有更多控制权

埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）被认为对特斯拉的迅速崛起非常重要。现在，他希望对公司有更多的控制权，以保持对公司的控制。

马斯克是特斯拉的长期首席执行官，他见证了特斯拉从一家摇摇欲坠的初创公司成长为一家价值比任何传统竞争对手高出数倍的全球巨头，他暗示他会退后一步，或者在没有更多投票权的情况下找点其他事情做：“除非是这样，否则我宁愿在特斯拉之外制造产品。

我不愿意将特斯拉发展成为人工智能和机器人技术的领导者，而没有~25%的投票控制权。足以有影响力，但又不至于让我无法被推翻。

除非是这样，否则我宁愿在特斯拉之外制造产品。你似乎不明白......

— 埃隆·马斯克 （@elonmusk） January 15， 2024

马斯克对在 X/Twitter 上制造争议并不陌生，甚至在他拥有它之前很久;这一说法与几年前著名的“资金保障”崩溃相呼应。那他为什么现在会发布这样的东西呢？

多年来，一项不同寻常的薪酬方案奖励了马斯克大量特斯拉股票，以达到某些业绩基准，使他成为地球上最富有的人。根据彭博亿万富翁指数（Bloomberg Billionaires Index），特斯拉的迅速崛起为马斯克赢得了超过2000亿美元的净资产，并让他拥有该汽车制造商约13%的股份（在出售一些股份以资助他收购Twitter之后）。

他一直被视为特斯拉成功不可或缺的人，这给了他其他大公司高管所没有的回旋余地。（因此，他公开表示，如果他没有得到更多的特斯拉，他就会走。

但更重要的是，马斯克将特斯拉提升到一个新的水平——将其从一家汽车公司转变为一家价值数万亿美元的人工智能和机器人公司——的计划尚未取得成果。特斯拉市值近 7000 亿美元（低于 2022 年高点 1 万亿美元）的主要原因是马斯克断言特斯拉是一家开创性的人工智能公司，而不仅仅是一家汽车公司。尽管该公司几乎所有的收入都来自汽车销售。通用汽车（General Motors）和丰田（Toyota）等汽车制造商每年的汽车销量比特斯拉高出数百万辆，但华尔街对它们的估值却要低数千亿美元。

几年来，马斯克一直声称自动驾驶特斯拉出租车指日可待。但特斯拉的全自动驾驶功能仍处于原型阶段，非常无法自动驾驶。一些专家怀疑特斯拉目前的战略是否能够生产出真正的自动驾驶汽车。

马斯克还表示，特斯拉的新机器人项目正在开发可以从事体力劳动的人工智能人形机器人，最终将使其汽车业务黯然失色。但这还有很长很长的路要走。（不过，擎天柱机器人确实只是折叠了一件衬衫，所以这很酷。

与此同时，特斯拉的电动汽车业务正面临着比以往任何时候都更加激烈的竞争，尤其是来自中国比亚迪的竞争，比亚迪刚刚超过马斯克的公司，成为全球电动汽车销售的领导者。特斯拉不得不大幅降价，蚕食其利润率。该公司仍未兑现推出廉价车型的长期承诺，这被广泛认为是其大幅增长销量的必要条件。自今年年初以来，特斯拉的市值已经缩水了940亿美元。

然而，马斯克兑现了他真正离开特斯拉的威胁——这同样是他财富的主要来源——似乎就像想象没有他的特斯拉一样深不可测。 这甚至看起来像是汽车制造商内部严密保护的秘密。

在通过人工智能创新证明其巨额估值的合理性，以及随着汽车巨头涌入电动汽车市场而继续发展其汽车业务之间，特斯拉有其工作要做。马斯克是否会参与其中现在是一个悬而未决的问题。

联系人：tim.levin@insideevs.com

原文阅读

Elon Musk Implies He'll Leave Tesla Without More Control, Bigger Stake

“I am uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI & robotics without having ~25% voting control," Musk said in an X post.

Jan 16, 2024 at 4:26pm ET

By: Tim Levin

Even for Elon Musk, who summarily rejects the rules other CEOs play by, this one was an extraordinary move to make out in the open. 

On Monday, Musk took to X to, essentially, demand more control of Tesla from the carmaker’s board. “I am uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI & robotics without having ~25% voting control. Enough to be influential, but not so much that I can’t be overturned,” he said in a post on the social media platform, which he owns. 

Get Fully Charged

Elon Musk wants more control of Tesla

Elon Musk has been viewed as incredibly important to Tesla's meteoric rise. Now he wants more control of the company to stay in the picture. 

Musk, Tesla’s longtime CEO who oversaw its growth from a shaky startup to a global powerhouse worth several times more than any legacy competitor, insinuated he’d step back or find something else to do without more voting power: “Unless that is the case, I would prefer to build products outside of Tesla.”

I am uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI & robotics without having ~25% voting control. Enough to be influential, but not so much that I can’t be overturned.

Unless that is the case, I would prefer to build products outside of Tesla. You don’t seem to understand…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 15, 2024

Musk is no stranger to creating controversy on X/Twitter, even long before he owned it; this statement has echoes of the infamous "funding secured" debacle from a few years ago. So why would he post such a thing now? 

Over the years, an unusual compensation package that rewarded Musk with large chunks of Tesla stock for hitting certain performance benchmarks made him the richest person on the planet. Tesla’s meteoric rise eas earned Musk a net worth of more than $200 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and left him with some 13% of the carmaker’s shares (after offloading some to fund his Twitter acquisition.)

He has been viewed as indispensable to Tesla’s success, granting him leeway that no other executives of major companies enjoy. (Hence him publicly saying he’ll walk if he doesn’t get more of Tesla.)

But, more importantly, Musk’s plan to take Tesla to the next level—to transform it from a car company into a multi-trillion-dollar AI and robotics company—has yet to bear fruit. A primary reason for Tesla’s nearly $700 billion value (down from a 2022 high of $1 trillion) is Musk’s assertion that Tesla is a groundbreaking AI company, not a mere car company. That’s despite nearly all of the company's revenue coming from vehicle sales. Automakers like General Motors and Toyota sell millions more vehicles than Tesla does each year—but Wall Street values them at hundreds of billions of dollars less. 

For several years, Musk has claimed that self-driving Tesla taxis were just around the corner. But Tesla’s poorly named Full Self-Driving feature is still in a prototype phase and very much cannot drive itself. Some experts doubt that Tesla’s current strategy will ever produce truly autonomous vehicles. 

Musk has also said that Tesla’s new robot project, which is developing artificially intelligent humanoids that can do manual labor, would eventually eclipse its car business. But that’s a long, long way away. (The Optimus bot did just fold a shirt, though, so that’s cool.)

Meanwhile, Tesla’s EV business is facing stiffer competition than ever—particularly from China’s BYD, which just overtook Musk’s firm as the global EV sales leader. Tesla has had to slash vehicle prices, eating into its profit margins. The company still hasn’t delivered on a longstanding promise to launch a cheap model, widely seen as necessary for it to significantly grow its sales volumes down the line. Since the start of the year, Tesla has shed $94 billion off of its market cap.

Yet Musk making good on his threat to actually leave Tesla—which, again, is the primary source of his wealth—seems as unfathomable as it is to imagine Tesla without him. And what that even looks like is a closely guarded secret within the automaker.

Between justifying its enormous valuation with AI innovation and continuing to grow its car business as automotive giants pile into the EV market, Tesla has its work cut out for it. Whether Musk will be along for the ride is now an open question.