Tesla faces troublesome activity to win shareholder vote, chair warns

Good morning.

The chair of Tesla Robyn Denholm has informed the FT that convincing the electric-car maker’s shareholders to vote on plans to relocate to Texas and again Elon Musk’s $56bn pay deal might be a troublesome activity.

Denholm has been chair of Tesla since 2018. Forward of the corporate’s annual assembly on June 13, she has been encouraging shareholders to vote on the adjustments which quantity to a referendum on the mercurial management of the world’s third-richest particular person.

A vote on Musk’s pay bundle solely requires a easy majority of votes, excluding these owned by Musk and his brother Kimbal. The trail to reincorporate in Texas is steeper, requiring a majority of all shares excellent; these not solid are counted as a “no”.

“It’s like Mount Everest. It’s an enormous hill to climb as a result of getting 50 per cent of the shareholders to vote, not to mention what they vote for, is sort of robust,” Denholm stated.

Learn extra of the FT’s unique interview with Denholm right here.

Right here’s what I’m retaining tabs on right this moment and over the weekend:

• Financial knowledge: Russia has inflation knowledge, the UK publishes insolvency numbers and China is ready to report retail gross sales and industrial output figures.

• Firms: Boeing chair Larry Kellner will step down after the airplane maker’s annual assembly right this moment. He’s set to be succeeded by Steve Mollenkopf.

• Center East: US nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan plans to journey to Saudi Arabia and Israel this weekend, Reuters reported, after pleasant fireplace killed 5 Israeli troopers throughout intense preventing with Hamas, Israel’s navy stated yesterday.

How nicely did you retain up with the information this week? Take our quiz.

5 extra high tales

1. US corporations have issued €30bn in euro-denominated bonds this 12 months, in search of to reap the benefits of the continent’s decrease borrowing prices. The provision of bonds may attain €85bn, based on Financial institution of America knowledge. Johnson & Johnson and Reserving Holdings are among the many corporations pursuing multibillion-euro offers. Learn extra in regards to the so-called reverse Yankee offers right here.

2. Reddit has struck a take care of OpenAI to make use of content material from the platform for its synthetic intelligence chatbot, sending shares within the social media firm up as a lot as 15 per cent in after-hours buying and selling yesterday. The soar would imply a windfall for OpenAI chief Sam Altman, who held near 10 per cent of Reddit’s inventory forward of its public itemizing. Learn the complete story.

3. Wildfires in Canada’s oil sands area may put 2mn barrels a day of artificial crude oil in danger. Cooler temperatures have improved situations, however virtually 20,000 hectares of land stay uncontrolled. Alberta, the place the oil sands area is situated, has skilled 323 wildfires this 12 months as fires turn out to be a bigger threat to grease manufacturing. Learn extra in regards to the wildfires right here.

4. Donald Trump’s defence has solid doubt on Michael Cohen’s reliability because the prosecution’s star witness within the Manhattan “hush cash” case. A lawyer for the previous president elicited testimony indicating a name allegedly made by Cohen, Trump’s former fixer and private legal professional, to Trump’s bodyguard in late 2016 could have been about one other matter fully. Right here’s extra from yesterday’s session.

• Joe Biden: The US president has blocked the discharge of audio recordings of his interviews with Robert Hur, the particular counsel who had earlier solid Biden as an “aged man with a poor reminiscence”.

5. UK-based Arup misplaced $25mn after fraudsters used a digitally cloned model of a senior supervisor to order monetary transfers throughout a video convention. The Monetary Instances has confirmed the engineering group, which employs about 18,000 folks globally and has annual revenues of greater than £2bn, was the goal of what Hong Kong police had beforehand revealed as one of many world’s largest recognized deepfake scams.

The Huge Learn

Younger folks’s curiosity in watching sporting occasions is waning. A YouGov report final 12 months discovered that simply 31 per cent of worldwide sports activities followers aged 18-24 watched stay matches, in contrast with 75 per cent for these 55 and over. As a substitute, youthful viewers had been extra prone to watch highlights clips or work together with star athletes through social media, whereas a big portion have interaction with their most popular sports activities by video video games. In an trade constructed on multibillion-dollar stay broadcasting offers, such traits have set off alarm bells on the enterprise mannequin’s long-term viability.

We’re additionally studying . . . 

• Cyril Ramaphosa: Going through his ultimate election, South Africa’s president is the frontman for a celebration that has misplaced its moorings, writes Alec Russell.

• Nuclear’s retiree spree: The sector is luring again hundreds of retired engineers and older professionals to workers its largest wave of latest tasks in a long time.

• Poisonous politics: Following the capturing of Prime Minister Robert Fico, may Slovakia’s significantly potent flavour of politics be responsible?

• Individuals’s bid: Joe Biden’s choice to power Chinese language firm ByteDance to promote TikTok is producing some unusual gives to purchase the social media web site, writes Gillian Tett.

Chart of the day

The dangers of “non-communicable” illnesses linked to ageing and life-style are rising at an alarming tempo, whereas the specter of infectious illnesses is diminishing. The findings by the Institute for Well being Metrics and Analysis level to an enormous problem for well being providers as an ageing international inhabitants develops extra complicated medical situations.

Take a break from the information

Photographers James Aubrey and Tim Hill trek by the mountains of Kyrgyzstan within the footsteps of Marco Polo, snapping arresting images alongside the best way.

Extra contributions from Tee Zhuo and Benjamin Wilhelm