Tesla’s accounting chief resigned this week after less than a month on the job, citing heightened public scrutiny of the electric carmaker, which has been rattled by the implosion of founder Elon Musk’s proposal to take it private.
“The level of public attention placed on the company, as well as the pace within the company, have exceeded my expectations,” said Dave Morton, who resigned effective Sept. 4 after taking the role on Aug. 6. “As a result, this caused me to reconsider my future.”
Morton, whose responsibilities were to include Tesla’s corporate financial reporting and global accounting and payroll, said he still believes strongly in Tesla’s mission and future prospects. “I have no disagreements with Tesla’s leadership or its financial reporting,” he said in a statement included in a regulatory filing on Friday. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company’s accounting and personnel will continue to be overseen by both Tesla’s finance chief and controller, as they were before and during Morton’s transition.
Morton’s tenure coincided with Musk’s proposal via Twitter to take the company private, a plan that reportedly received scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission, and which he abandoned in late August. The $420-a-share buyout would distract personnel from ramping up production of the new Model 3 and achieving profitability, he said at the time, and most investors preferred the carmaker’s shares be publicly traded.
The independent members of Tesla’s board, which had formed a special committee to evaluate any formal proposal from Musk, said they concurred with his assessment and dissolved the panel. The carmaker has been under pressure to consistently meet a production goal of 5,000 Model 3s a week as well as to attain profitability and generate cash after losing $1.43 billion, or $8.42 a share, in just the first half of this year.
Musk recently told investors that he expected to reverse the losses in the three months through September and remain profitable afterward. He had initially said the buyout plan would enable Tesla to focus on long-term success without the pressure to meet quarterly earnings targets or the possibility of wild share-price swings due to investors betting against the company.
Funding had been secured, Musk said, though the Wall Street Journal later reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission was evaluating the accuracy of that statement.
Days after the CEO’s initial Twitter posts, he wrote in a blog post on Tesla’s website that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, which holds a 5 percent stake already, had repeatedly recommended taking the company private and was interested in financing the deal.
The SEC has declined to comment. Musk said the transaction might cost just $23.6 billion, since the $420-a-share price would be paid only to the 33 percent of investors he estimated would pull out if the company weren’t publicly traded.
