Elon Musk has dropped his chief executive job title and crowned himself “Technoking of Tesla”. It comes just days after a Tesla investor sued Mr Musk and the company over a series of “erratic” and “unlawful” tweets. Mr Musk recently lost his title as the richest man in the world after Tesla shares tumbled.
Mr Musk will still retain his position of chief within the company, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing said. Tesla’s chief financial officer, Zach Kirkhorn, has the new title of Master of Coin. This may refer to the company’s $1.5bn (£1.1bn) purchase of Bitcoin this year. Neither Mr Musk or Mr Kirkhorn have elaborated on the meanings of the new titles.
Lawyers for Chase Gharrity accused Mr Musk of issuing false statements about Tesla’s finances to his tens of millions of followers. In May last year, Mr Musk shared a tweet claiming that Tesla’s stock value was “too high”. His comments caused the company’s market value to decrease by $13bn at the time.
It was not the first time Mr Musk’s social media persona has landed him in trouble. Mr Musk and Tesla each paid $20m in fines after he falsely claimed in a tweet in 2018 that he had “secured funding” of $72bn to take Tesla private. The tweet also sparked an ongoing lawsuit claiming that his claims “defrauded shareholders”.