MONDAY KETCHUP: Top 9 stories with Tesla shakeups, Nikola's new board member of the week, Tyson Foods, and Zoom's using your therapist calls for AI

Live from Warren Buffett’s cash pile, it’s yet another Manic Monday edition of Business Pants. Joined by the Lord of Analyst-Holes. In today’s swampy anthill called August 7, 2023: Top 9 Sexy Monday Stories and BM of the Week!

DAMION1

1. All the Musk shit:

1. Musk vows to pay legal costs for users who get in trouble at work for their tweets

1. Elon Musk said X, formerly known as Twitter, will cover the legal costs of anyone who gets in trouble with their boss for their activity on his social media platform.

2. "If you were unfairly treated by your employer due to posting or liking something on this platform, we will fund your legal bill," Musk wrote Saturday on X.

3. The tech billionaire further promised there was "no limit" on the amount the company would be willing to pay — despite plunging advertising revenue and a growing threat to X from Meta's newly unveiled Twitter-like platform, Threads.

2. The Tesla executive who was rumored to be next in line for CEO is leaving the company

1. Tesla's CFO Zachary Kirkhorn is leaving the carmaker, the company said in a regulatory filing.

2. Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal reported Kirkhorn could be Elon Musk's successor at Tesla.

3. Kirkhorn has worked at the electric-car maker for about 13 years.

4. In May, the Journal compared Musk's relationship with Kirkhorn to the connection between Apple cofounder Steve Jobs and the company's current CEO, Tim Cook

1. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has named Zhu Xiaotong, also known as Tom Zhu, as a deputy at the company: July 22

5. Meanwhile at Tesla in just the past 10 days:

1. Tesla under investigation by California attorney general over Autopilot safety, marketing

2. Tesla has been exaggerating its vehicles' potential driving distance for years by rigging their range-estimating software, report says

1. Elon Musk gave Tesla workers the order to present overly optimistic driving ranges for the company's electric cars, according to a recent report from Reuters.

2. Tesla is facing a class-action lawsuit filed by customers who say they were misled by the company's exaggerated range claims

3. Elon Musk is bringing Tesla showrooms to Native American tribal land to get around local car dealership laws

4. Tesla is under investigation by U.S. auto safety regulators over complaints that new Model 3 and Model Y vehicles can lose steering control

2. Women in boardrooms: Under 4% of Japan's top firms are on track

1. Blue chips make slow progress toward goal of 30% representation by 2030

2. Of the roughly 1,800 companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Prime market, just 68, or 3.7%, had met the 30% target for female directors, auditors and accounting advisers, based on disclosures for fiscal 2022. This marked an improvement of only 1 percentage point from fiscal 2021.

3. Nikola Names Chairman Steve Girsky CEO — Fourth Chief in Four Years

1. Former board members moves into captain’s chair — and shares dive.

2. The revolving door for the CEO of Nikola Motors spun again as company chairman Stephen Girsky added CEO to his title as Michael Lohscheller departs.

3. Michael Lohscheller resigned as CEO of Nikola due to family health matters. Chairman Steve Girsky is taking on the job.

4. While Girsky will now be the fourth person in four years to take on the role, Lohscheller’s departure is not a business decision as he’s leaving due to a “family health matter.” His resignation is immediate and he’s returning to Europe, although he will remain in an advisory role through the end of September to ease Girsky’s transition.

4. Sam Altman is already nervous about what AI might do in elections

1. The OpenAI chief warned about the power of AI-generated media to potentially influence the vote

2. “i am nervous about the impact AI is going to have on future elections (at least until everyone gets used to it). personalized 1:1 persuasion, combined with high-quality generated media, is going to be a powerful force.”

5. Bosses, beware: The ‘sickest day of the year’ for American workers is coming this month

1. Aug. 24 is the nation’s “sickest day of the year,” according to new research. The reason why employees call out en masse on that day, however, is unclear. Is it illness, sun lust, or a mix of both?

6. Clarence Thomas purchased his luxury RV with the help of a wealthy former healthcare executive: NYT

1. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas purchased a $267,000 RV with the help of a wealthy friend.

2. Thomas received a loan from Anthony Welters, a former executive at UnitedHealthCare, The New York Times reported.

1. FFA: Loews (1%); Gilead Sciences (8%); The Carlyle Group (2%)

7. HSBC executive sorry for saying UK 'weak' over China

1. HSBC's head of public affairs  Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles has apologized after accusing the British government of being "weak" for complying with US demands to cut back business dealings with China.

2. A spokesperson for the bank said Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles made the comments "at a private roundtable discussion and shared his personal views."

3. More than 80% of HSBC's profits are generated from outside the UK, with over half of that coming from mainland China and Hong Kong.

4. He was the Foreign Secretary's Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2009–2010. After leaving the Foreign Office, he worked briefly for BAE Systems as international business development director. He left BAE Systems in 2013 and is now a Senior Adviser to the Group chairman and the Group Chief Executive of HSBC. He is also President of the Jane Austen Society.

1. President Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles; Vice Presidents Richard Knight, Elizabeth Proudman, Patrick Stokes

2. Professor Richard Jenkyns (Chairman); The Revd Canon Michael Kenning (Vice Chairman); Maureen Stiller (Honorary Secretary); Matthew Huntley (Honorary Treasurer)

3. 8 leadership positions: 6 held my men

4. Despite being founded 1940 by Dorothy Darnell and being bailed out recently by Sandy Lerner: co-founded Cisco Systems 

5. FFA FPG/42/27

8. Tyson Foods Expands Chicken Plant Closures

1. Arkansas-based meat processor reports $417 million quarterly loss, lower sales; company says it is evaluating other potential plant closures

1. Tyson Foods CFO John R. Tyson arrested after drunkenly entering random woman's home and sleeping in her bed, police say

1.  He was previously its chief sustainability officer from 2019 to 2022

2. FFA: 66% of board influence held by 2 Tyson family members, including John R’s dad John H.

9. Zoom can now train its A.I. using some customer data, according to updated terms

1. Zoom’s terms of service update establishes the video platform’s right to use some customer data for training its AI models.

2. Zoom clarified that “for AI, we do not use audio, video or chat content for training our models without customer consent.”

3. But when a user enables Zoom’s generative AI features, released in June, the company has them sign a consent form allowing Zoom to train its AI models using their customer content.

MATT1

BM of the Week:

“ease Girsky’s transition” - our new BM of the week is Steve Girsky, the new CEO of Nikola

Here’s the easing he could use: 

• Was on the board from 2018, took Nikola public via SPAC with his company

• As part of the SPAC, they added classified board (from 2 to 3 classes) and supermajority votes

• Girsky made himself, as SPAC sponsor, the third largest individual shareholder with 1.5% of the shares - which he almost entirely cashed out when it was at the high around $60/share right after it went public (currently trades at a solid post-fraud coitus value of $2.18).  Estimated take home ~$5m (probably much much more, hard to find actual figure)

• Girsky’s board position came with a spot on the Nominating and Governance committee - the committee that oversaw, you know, fraud-y stuff and hired/fired CEOs

• Nikola has had 4 CEOs in 4 years and nominating himself, obviously, this time around

• Girsky’s governance committee has had a rotating cast of chairs: Jeff Ubben (Exxon board, among others), Lynn Forester de Rothschild (Estee Lauder’s fake public board), and Girsky himself

• 100% female board member turnover with tenure <2 years each!

• Free Float Analytics, our sponsor’s, data:

• He was a SHIT DIRECTOR already - was director at US Steel batting 0.1.08, one of the worst in the database overall

• Now his is also a shit director, batting 0.137 overall

• 0.196 TSR

• 0.211 EBITDA

• 0.079 Carbon intensity - and they make renewable energy trucks!

• 0.022 Controversies - proving investors could care less about directors that oversee horrible company behavior

• Will go from 15% influence to between 20-30% influence given all board changes most likely, consolidation of CEO chair role