Elon Musk wants Tesla hires cleared by him as he shifts focus away from Twitter

theguardian.com:

Days after announcing a new CEO at Twitter, Elon Musk has turned his eye to Tesla, ordering managers to clear all hires at the electric car maker through him.

Musk communicated the decision in a memo to Tesla staff on Monday, according to documents obtained by The Information.

Musk asked Tesla managers to send him a weekly list of all proposed hires, including contractors, and to “think carefully” about anything being proposed, according to the report.

Musk has given out similar directives in the past, the publication said, with staff reporting that the practice has at times been tantamount to a hiring freeze.

Also on Monday, a federal appeals court rejected the billionaire’s plea to modify or end a 2018 settlement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that required some of his tweets to get advance approval from a Tesla lawyer.

Musk had appealed to end the requirement, charging that having to pre-clear his tweets was a “government-imposed muzzle” that violated his free speech rights.

Musk had agreed to the reviews in 2018 as part of a consent decree to end a federal case accusing him of defrauding investors with a tweet that he had “funding secured” to take his electric car company private at $420 a share. The funding never materialised and the company was never taken private.

Shareholders and the SEC charged that Musk’s tweet drove up share prices and ultimately contributed to losses taken by some shareholders.

In addition to agreeing to have some tweets screened, Musk and Tesla each also paid $20m in civil fines and Musk gave up his role as chairman as a result of the SEC case.

Musk’s request to end that arrangement was initially denied by a Manhattan federal court judge who ruled in 2022 that the requirement