A number of Tesla shareholders are accusing Elon Musk and the corporate’s board of knowingly diverting expertise and assets away from the corporate and directing it towards Musk’s rival synthetic intelligence firm, xAI.
In a lawsuit, the shareholders allege that Musk and the board breached their fiduciary obligation to Tesla by launching xAI, which was based in 2023 on the premise of understanding “the true nature of the universe.”
The plaintiffs filed their lawsuit in Delaware, the place the corporate continues to be included, solely hours earlier than Tesla shareholders are set to vote on a proposal to reincorporate the corporate in Texas after a Delaware court docket choose voided Musk’s huge pay package deal. The lawsuit was first reported by Enterprise Insider and TechCrunch.
They observe that, for years, Musk has sought to place Tesla not as a automobile firm however as a robotics and AI powerhouse. The declare helped propel Tesla’s inventory value, ensuing within the firm’s worth exceeding that of prime automakers mixed.
All of the whereas, Musk was “diverting scarce expertise and assets from Tesla to xAI, and raised billons of {dollars} for xAI whereas touting xAI’s entry to Tesla’s AI-related information,” the lawsuit reads. Final week, xAI raised $6 billion in its preliminary funding spherical, which it mentioned it is going to use to convey its first merchandise to market. To this point, xAI has launched Grok, a supposedly edgier model of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which is out there through X however just for Premium subscribers.
The plaintiffs additionally cite a current CNBC report about Musk ordering hundreds of Nvidia-made AI chips destined for Tesla to be diverted to the social media firm. In a submit on X after CNBC’s story revealed, Musk mentioned that Tesla lacked the capability to simply accept the Nvidia GPUs as a result of the corporate’s manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas, is incomplete. He additionally estimated that Tesla would spend $3–4 billion on AI chips from Nvidia in 2024.
Additionally they cite different posts by Musk suggesting he wants a bigger stake in Tesla — to the tune of 25 p.c — to really feel comfy rising Tesla into an AI and robotics chief. The plaintiffs additionally accuse Tesla’s board of doing nothing, permitting Musk “to plunder assets from Tesla and divert them to xAI; and to create billions in AI-related worth at an organization aside from Tesla.”
This isn’t the one shareholder lawsuit to emerge this week. An institutional investor sued the corporate, claiming Musk earned billions of {dollars} promoting Tesla inventory utilizing insider data.