Four Tesla directors to leave company in board streamlining
Tesla has announced that four of the eleven members on its board will be leaving the company over the next two years in a move to increase efficiency.
In a regulatory filing, the company said that Brad Buss, Antonio Gracias, Stephen Jurvetson, and Linda Johnson Rice would not be standing for re-election in the annual meetings of stockholders this year and next.
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It also said that directors had decided it would be “focusing on a phased streamlining of the size of the board to allow it to operate more nimbly and efficiently.”
Tesla denied it was down to any disagreement between the company and its directors.
Of the four, Buss and Gracias were part of Tesla’s disclosure controls committee, which oversaw the terms of consent agreement between Tesla and the SEC.
Buss was formely the chief financial officer at SolarCity, which was acquired by Tesla in 2016, while Gracias has been an independent director since 2010, although proxy adviser ISS claimed he was not independent in May last year and reccomended investors vote against his re-election.
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Meanwhile, Jurvetson has faced allegations of sexual harassment and reportedly been on absence of leave since, although he denies all allegations against him.
The decision comes just weeks after Elon Musk's position as chief executive was confirmed after a federal judge urged him to settle contempt allegations by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, following his claims last year he had "secured funding" to take the company private on Twitter.