Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk has identified successors for his companies and he’s leaving his children out of the picture. He doesn’t even plan to hand over any of his voting shares to his kids.
What To Know: According to a Business Insider report citing an interview at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council, Musk has identified recommended successors for his companies if something were to happen to him, but none of the candidates are his children.
The Tesla CEO actually believes it’s wrong for executives to pass companies down or even give voting shares to their offspring.
“I am definitely not of the school of automatically giving my kids some share of the companies … I think that’s a mistake,” Musk reportedly said in the interview.
Musk’s son X Æ A-12 might be the most well-known of Musk’s kids, given all of the attention he got for his unique name, but the billionaire has several other children, including Exa Dark Sideræl (nicknamed Y), who he secretly had with singer Grimes (Claire Boucher), and Vivian Jenna Wilson who was recently granted a name change from Xavier Alexander Musk, no longer wanting to be related to Musk “in any way, shape or form,” per Reuters.
Musk isn’t the only one in the camp that believes fortunes shouldn’t be passed to children. Apple’s Steve Jobs wasn’t interested in legacy wealth building, and billionaire investor Warren Buffett only plans to leave a small percentage of his wealth to his kids — the rest has been pledged to philanthropy.
The Tesla CEO has already named potential successors at each of his companies if something were to happen to him.
“There are particular individuals identified … So in all cases, the board is aware of who [is] my recommendation,” Musk said.
The bigger issue is who would take over his voting shares, he said. He’s floated around the idea of creating an “educational institution” of some sort to control his shares.
Musk’s succession plans have been in focus ever since he acquired Twitter (X) for $44 billion and took the company private. Tesla investors continue to worry that Musk has his hand in too many cookie jars. Musk’s companies currently include Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), The Boring Company, Neuralink and xAI.
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Some elements of this story were previously reported by Benzinga and it has been updated.
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
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