Tesla doesn’t have a president, chief operating officer or chief technology officer, but the electric-car maker has added two roles other S&P 500 companies lack: a CEO who is also a “technoking” and a chief financial officer who will additionally be known as a “master of coin.”
The quirky titles were announced in an SEC filing early Monday. “Effective as of March 15, 2021, the titles of Elon Musk and Zach Kirkhorn have changed to Technoking of Tesla and Master of Coin, respectively. Elon and Zach will also maintain their respective positions as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer.”
The company gave no explanation for the move in the filing, and Musk didn’t reference it on his Twitter account. The company, which has no media relations team, didn’t respond to a request for additional comment.
The change appears to be the latest display of centibillionaire Musk’s idiosyncratic sense of humor, which in the past has included selling flamethrowers to raise funds for The Boring Co., building a medieval guard tower across from SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, or selling red satin shorts to mock investors who lost money shorting Tesla shares. The Tesla cofounder has occasionally mocked the SEC in the past, which in 2018 fined him $20 million and forced him to give up his role as board chairman for falsely tweeting that he’d secured funds to take the company private.
It’s unclear whether CFO Kirkhorn’s master of coin title relates to Tesla’s $1.5 billion Bitcoin, disclosed in February, or Musk’s promotion on Twitter of meme-based cryptocurrency Dogecoin.
Separately, Tesla said Jerome Guillen, who has been Tesla’s president of automotive, is now its president of heavy trucking. “As Tesla prepares to enter the critical heavy trucks market for the first time, Mr. Guillen will now leverage his extensive background in this industry to focus on and lead all aspects of the Tesla Semi program, including the related charging and servicing networks,” the company said in a filing.
“We view Guillen moving to the heavy truck frontier as a significant strategic move showing Tesla plans to double down on its Semi and trucking vision over the next few years,” Wedbush equity analyst Dan Ives said in a research note on Monday. “We continue to believe this is a 2022 model release that will be discussed in more detail over the coming months from Tesla as production plans start to develop.”
Musk, who owns more than 20% of Tesla’s shares, has a net worth of $173.3 billion, Forbes estimates. A Tesla investor is suing Musk, claiming his tweets violate terms of the 2018 settlement with the SEC, Reuters reported on March 12.
Tesla rose 2% to close at $707.94 on Monday in Nasdaq trading.
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