Controlling Musk biggest challenge for Tesla head

Australian telecommunications executive Robyn Denholm brings much-needed financial and auto industry expertise to her new role as Tesla's board chairwoman, but some suggest her biggest challenge will be reining in a CEO with a proclivity for misbehavior.

Denholm, 55, is chief financial officer and strategy head at Telstra Corp Ltd, Australia's largest telecommunications company. She will step down from Telstra after a six-month notice period. She'll then work full-time at Tesla, where she has served on the board since 2014.

Her new role at Tesla came largely because of the board's failure to control Elon Musk who she replaced on Wednesday as part of a securities fraud settlement with US government regulators. Musk can't return as chairman for three years, and only with a shareholder vote.

The move vaults Denholm from relative obscurity into a high-profile position of trying to muzzle Musk and manage a company that is struggling to produce vehicles and make money.

However, corporate governance experts say they would have preferred an outsider with manufacturing expertise be appointed to lead the board, now dominated by people with personal and financial ties to Musk, including his brother.

They aren't sure if Denholm was named just to placate the Securities and Exchange Commission to comply with the settlement or whether she'll actually be able to corral the visionary but erratic Musk, who remains CEO.

Musk made a surprise announcement over Twitter in August that funding was secured to take Tesla private at $420 per share. That drove up Tesla's stock price and hurt short-sellers, investors who bet against the company's success. Eventually it drew a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission alleging that Musk misled investors.

"When all the crazy stuff going on, she was there," said Rohan Williamson, a finance professor who studies corporate governance at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. "She couldn't control him before. Is anything going to change?"

Charles Elson, director of the corporate governance center at the University of Delaware, said Tesla should have brought in someone from outside.

No matter how talented Denholm may be, and even though she appears to have fewer ties to Musk than other directors, she has a shadow over her of being on the board that did little as Musk misbehaved, he said.

"You really have got to wonder," he said. "No other CEO of any other public company would have survived this."

AP