Additional info is very hard to come by, I give you all I have for now, developing…

WE’RE LOOKIG AT A 69 HERE

BlackRock voted to replace Tesla’s Musk with independent chairman

REUTERS, AUGUST 31, 2018

Funds run by BlackRock Inc voted in favor of a recent shareholder proposal that would have required Tesla Inc to replace Elon Musk with an independent chairman.

BlackRock-managed funds voted for a measure requiring the chairman be an independent director, according to BlackRock’s filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. The proposal, which was defeated, would not have affected Musk’s standing as Tesla’s chief executive officer.

More than 86 million shares voted against the proposal at a shareholder meeting in June, while fewer than 17 million voted in favor, Tesla said.

Some corporate governance activists call for the chairman and CEO roles to be split between two people to improve oversight, and the new filing revealed at least one major investor backed such changes at Tesla. BlackRock’s role in backing the proposal was not previously reported.

Musk has been under pressure over the company’s spending and after tweeting on Aug. 7 that he planned to take the company private, only to abandon the idea by Aug. 24.

Tesla’s board had said that the company’s success “would not have been possible” without Musk’s “day-to-day exposure to the company’s business.”

Yet top proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services Inc supported the proposal, citing concerns about Musk’s pay and board independence.

“BlackRock’s approach to investment stewardship is driven by our fiduciary duties to our clients, the asset owners,” a BlackRock spokeswoman said in an emailed statement. “Our approach to engaging with companies and proxy voting activities is consistent with our commitment to drive long term shareholder value for our clients.”

BlackRock funds are a top-10 Tesla stockholder, controlling nearly 6.5 million of Tesla’s 170 million shares, according to Thomson Reuters data based on public filings.

Vanguard Group Inc-run funds voted against the independent-chair proposal, a recent filing showed. Funds run by Fidelity Investments sided with Tesla on director votes and other controversial items this spring, its filings showed.

BlackRock’s report also showed it voted this year in favor of shareholder proposals at Facebook Inc and Google parent Alphabet Inc to give each shareholder an equal vote on governance matters.

Some companies are structured in a way that gives some shareholders more power than others, regardless of how many shares they hold.

BlackRock withheld votes or voted against nearly all management recommendations at Netflix Inc, including an advisory vote on executive pay.

HIS PORTFOLIO IS ALREADY VERY INTRIGUING, TO SAY THE LEAST

But if you think of him as a face for the Pentagon pillar of the Military BioTech Complex, it all makes much more sense.

Here is what you can find in Elon Musk Stock Portfolio, according to https://comparebrokers.co :

Zip2

Zip2 is among Elon Musk’s oldest yet most notable investments. This site came at a time when the internet needed directories, i.e., before Google and Yahoo. After dropping out of Stanford in 1995, the now-Tesla CEO launched Zip2, joined by his brother Kimbal, and using their father’s $28,000 lent to them. Zip2 was sold to Compaq for $307 million in 1999, earning Musk $22 million.

Musk then invested $10 million from his Zip2 profits into establishing X.com, one of the earliest attempts at online banking.

Bitcoin Investments

Many people are curious about what motivated Tesla CEO Elon Musk to invest in Bitcoin. Is he worried that the world will become a digital country ruled by virtual bankers? Or is it because he believes that powerful forces can manipulate the financial system to benefit the few and shut out the many? You can likely understand why the virtual currency, Bitcoin, is important to him.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Elon Musk invested in Bitcoin late last year. His long-term investment was worth about $1.5 billion for the electric car company. As he continues to work on his various ventures, he promotes all forms of cryptography and virtual currencies.

Regarding the recent boom in the value of Bitcoins, many people are wondering if this will cause governments to lose control of their money. As mentioned, Musk is an entrepreneur, so he has every right to invest in any venture that he believes to be profitable and safe.

If he were to mention during an interview that he was involved in investing in virtual currency, would the media ask him why? Would they stop and ask why he thought it was a good idea? Surely not. They would probably ask him what digital currency he thinks is the best to use at this moment.

PayPal

PayPal is on the way to becoming one of the most important players in the e-commerce scene. Already famous for its PayPal mobile payment system, the company has made big moves into the mobile payments arena.

They recently announced that they would release an iPhone application that allows you to make offline purchases at millions of locations. They also have an application for the Android operating system that allows you to make purchases at about a quarter of a million locations.

The interesting part about this story is that there was hardly any talk of either of these companies being boring companies before this partnership. As you might expect, given that Paypal is a well-respected company with a history of investing in high-profile businesses, it was only natural for them to want to invest in Paypal as their chief executive officer.

Sika

Sika Company, also known as Sika International, is a Swiss international chemical company that provides services to the construction and motor vehicle industry worldwide.

The company creates products and systems for sealing, waterproofing, strengthening, dampening, and reinforcing. Their product lines offer a variety of sealants, varnishes, roof coatings, paints, epoxies, and adhesives.

When Sika began producing products, they focused on manufacturing synthetic rubber and plastics called Thermoset Polyimide. As the company expanded and products became more mainstream, the name was changed to Sika International.

In the late nineteen seventies, shortly after World War II began, the United States became interested in its products and began working with them on strategic goals. A contract was signed in 1954.

Since then, the United States and Switzerland have worked together to provide the best products to their competing industries.

Tesla Motors

When we last checked in with the story of the potential sale of Musk’s Tesla, the now-bankrupt Space Age Company stakeholders had a meeting to approve a plan for selling the company.

The stakeholders approved a deal that will allow them to purchase many shares of stock from Musk’s venture while also receiving millions of dollars in cash.

It is unclear how much money will be raised through such a transaction since it will depend on the deal the Musk brothers come up with. It is also unclear if the funds raised will be kept by the company or given to Musk.

There are several reasons why the shareholders approved this sale. It was reported that the Space Age Company needed more money for research and development, especially considering it was developing a new rocket engine.

Additionally, the board of directors felt that it was better to raise money than to lose existing investors, and the brand would be worth more than most of the investments made by private equity firms in the past.

The sale will free up millions of dollars previously used for marketing and product development. Many people are worried that once these millions of dollars are gone, the brand’s future will be in jeopardy.

Modine Manufacturing

The company’s technology allows them to produce high-quality and durable off-road original equipment manufacturer parts in the process of producing many of the highest temperatures on Earth and at great pressures.

This extreme capability and ability to utilise space and time to produce superior products make them ideal for high-volume, low-volume production processes.

Modine’s technology in vehicle cooling products and high-pressure heat transfer components enables them to offer a broad range of products and services to a diverse customer base.

They can develop thermal and lubrication systems capable of handling extreme environments and rugged work locations.

Additionally, Modine has developed various high-volume sheet metal products optimised for specific vehicle applications, such as bodybuilding, sheet metal fabrication, and sheet metal brazing.

Modine’s ability to handle these wide ranges of vehicle applications allows them to serve many customers, many of whom are in the automotive industry.

Dogecoin

By now, anyone with even an ounce of interest in investing is aware of Musk’s investments. Dogecoin is among those whenever the subject of Elon Musk stock portfolio comes up.

Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency that began as a gag but has since gained mainstream recognition. Most people also know that Elon Musk is a huge proponent of Dogecoin, frequently touting it as profitable on his social media accounts.

Musk himself has confirmed that Dogecoin holds a significant portion of his investments. Even his investment advice features Dogecoin.

In his recent tweets, Musk suggested the concept of launching Dogecoin payments on Twitter as well. In January, Elon Musk revealed that Tesla merchandise was purchasable via Dogecoin as well.

Owing to the efforts of the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, Dogecoin’s value rose concurrently with Musk’s tweets about it in the past months. In July last year, Musk had shared his opinions about the problems linked with Bitcoin and Ethereum.

He also assumed that a Dogecoin update was meant to resolve such issues, e.g., lowering transaction costs and times, giving the currency an advantage over other digital coins.

The Boring Company

The Boring Company is a company that provides solutions to traffic problems by building underground tunnels. With headquarters in Pflugerville, the company revealed that it raised over $675 in a Series C funding round, bringing the company’s value to more than $5.5 billion.

Musk tweeted about the event in April, revealing that the company was to hire competent people and increase boring machine manufacture. He further revealed that he wished to build thousands of miles of underground tunnels.

Founded by Musk, the Boring Company announced that it had managed to win approval for constructing a 29-mile underground runner network linking fifty-one stations under Las Vegas.

The network will transport 57k passengers per hour and has been deemed the company’s largest project. The Boring Company plans to transport passengers as fast as 150 miles per hour. The company has only been able to reach 50 miles per hour thus far.

Besides PayPal, Tesla, and Twitter, the Boring Company is among the companies closely monitoring investment funds as a growth investment.

The Boring Company completed a tunnel for Teslas that started from the Las Vegas Convention Center and stopped at Resorts World Hotel.

DeepMind Technologies

DeepMind Technologies is an AI company developed in late 2010. Musk was among the company’s most distinguished angel investors. Google acquired the company later in January 2014 for an unknown amount.

As it is known, the Tesla co-founder is notoriously worried about artificial intelligence one day taking over; hence, DeepMind made it into one of Musk’s investments. It has been made clear that he did not do it to make money. Instead, he did it to stay ahead of how quickly AI technology develops.

DeepMind has directed most of its research on reinforcement learning, an AI technique that incorporates deep learning (for recognising patterns) with reinforcement learning.

DeepMind created this type of learning contingent on reward signals, e.g., a game score, and named the technique in a 2013 white paper.

SolarCity

Musk purchased solar energy company SolarCity in 2016. He convinced the Tesla Motors board that the investment was part of a greater plan to introduce vertical integration within Tesla as that would help with power generation and consumption.

The deal has been under scrutiny in the past recent years and Musk and Tesla stockholders are involved in a court battle that could lead to settlements worth $13 billion. When the deal was finalised, Musk held around 22% of Tesla stock and 21% of SolarCity.

The Chief Executive Officer has denied any misconduct regarding the SolarCity deal. At the same time, Tesla stockholders state that Musk and his family and business partners took unfair advantage of the deal.

Since the deal, Tesla stocks have skyrocketed, claiming above $1000 per share, up 1500% in the past half-decade. SolarCity was established by Peter and Lyndon Rive, Musk’s cousins. Musk acted as a board member (chairman, to be exact) when the company was acquired.

OpenAI

OpenAI is a research lab focused on AI. The firm is based in San Francisco and is seen as a competitor to Alphabet’s DeepMind. Musk was among the earlier funders of the firm, pledging $1 billion when it was established in 2015. Later in 2019, the company received a $1 billion grant from Microsoft. Musk, who served as a board member since the firm was founded, quit in 2018 but still plays an advisory role at the company.

While resigning, Musk cited possible complications since OpenAI and Tesla were both active in AI projects. OpenAI had been a non-profit until 2019. After it received its Microsoft grand, the firm changed its business model to become a for-profit company. Furthermore, it also revealed the commercial licensing of its technologies. Musk has criticised the company’s deal with Microsoft.

Twitter

Elon Musk surprised everyone with his bid to buy Twitter in 2022. It was reported in major news outlets that Elon Musk would buy Twitter for $44 billion. Musk’s main objective was to make the social media platform’s algorithm open source to encourage free speech. However, according to a new Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Musk later terminated his deal to buy Twitter.

Neuralink

Neuralink is a neurotechnology company that Elon Musk co-founded. It has been developing an implantable brain-machine interface since its establishment in 2016. Neuralink’s co-founders include Google Inc., Google Ventures, among others. The company aims to link a brain to computers via high-speed brain implants. Though the concept of this technology may seem truncated, there is a focus on helping quadriplegics communicate via mobile gadgets in the future.

The company has demonstrated its progress in its findings by showing a Macaque monkey control a cursor in a game of Pong. However, it has not reached human trials yet.

NeuroVigil

Musk is very keen on technology and studying the mind, and NeuroVigil is yet another one of his investments in the field. The company is famous for developing brain monitors and employs algorithms to find indications of pathology in individuals who do not display other symptoms, e.g., brain cancer patients or neurodegeneration.

Musk was one of the major investors taking part in the company’s second funding round in 2015.

Stocks Musk Doesn’t Invest In

While little is known about Musk’s investment portfolio, one thing for sure is that the bulk of his holdings happen to be in both private and public companies he has control over. He does not own any prominent stock positions in other businesses than his own.

Musk is not a hedge fund manager; therefore, he is not obligated to reveal smaller investments. With that being said, he may have small investments in publicly traded stocks.

Musk’s Private Equity

Musk established and controls numerous companies, with SpaceX being the largest. He holds nearly 44% of the company, valued roughly at $127 billion in a funding round in May 2022. With a total value of nearly $300 billion, Elon Musk’s Space and Tesla make up a majority of his net worth.

Besides SpaceX, Musk has majority ownership of many other start-up businesses he was involved in or founded.

MORE ESSENTIAL REPORTS ON ELON MUSK HERE

To be continued?
Our work and existence, as media and people, is funded solely by our most generous supporters. But we’re not really covering our costs so far, and we’re in dire needs to upgrade our equipment, especially for video production.
Help SILVIEW.media survive and grow, please donate here, anything helps. Thank you!

! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them