Tesla Shareholders Rejected Investment in Elon Musk's xAI
Date: 2025-11-10 Author: Henry Casey Categories: BUSINESS
Tesla shareholders rejected a proposal to fund xAI, owned by Elon Musk. Despite 1.06 billion votes cast in favor and 916.3 million against, the initiative's fate was decided by more than 473 million abstentions, whose votes are considered negative under the charter. As a result, the proposal was not adopted.
Tesla's board of directors stated that it would consider further action taking into account investor sentiment, emphasizing that the vote was advisory in nature. The company's general counsel, Brandon Erhart, noted that the decision does not preclude collaboration with xAI, but requires a more cautious approach when making joint decisions.
Elon Musk previously proposed investing up to $5 billion in xAI development, considering it a step toward deepening synergies between their projects. The companies are already actively collaborating: xAI has spent nearly $200 million on Tesla Megapack batteries, and the Grok chatbot is integrated into Tesla vehicles and the X platform (formerly Twitter).
In documents presented to shareholders, the company emphasized that some of Musk's initiatives are not fully aligned with Tesla's mission and could divert resources from its core areas of transportation and energy. However, experts acknowledge that xAI technologies have the potential to strengthen Tesla's position in autonomous systems and robotics.
Tesla board chair Robin Denholm noted the companies' distinct goals. According to her, Tesla is focused on practical solutions in sustainable energy and transportation, while xAI is developing larger-scale artificial intelligence projects that extend beyond specific products.
If the funding had been approved, Musk would have gained even more control over his corporate ecosystem. SpaceX is already investing in the development of xAI, and integration with X enables the use of social media content to train AI models and promote the Grok chatbot.
Over the past year, xAI has raised approximately $20 billion in investment aimed at building data centers and specialized chips for large-scale computing. This strengthens the company's position as a key player in the field of artificial intelligence.
Earlier, Tesla shareholders approved a new compensation package for Musk, which could ultimately net him up to $1 trillion in stock, and Forbes recently reported that the billionaire's net worth has surpassed $500 billion for the first time in history.
