Tesla’s Third Largest Shareholder Calls For the Ouster of Elon Musk as CEO

KoGuan Leo, an Indonesian billionaire and the third-largest individual shareholder of Tesla, is calling for the electric carmaker’s CEO, Elon Musk, to step down as much of his attention is focused on Twitter lately.

“Elon abandoned Tesla and Tesla has no working CEO,” Leo tweeted on Dec. 14. “Tesla needs and deserves to have working full-time CEO.”

Leo proposed Tesla’s board of directors appoint a professional manager, someone similar to Apple CEO Tim Cook, as Musk’s replacement.

“Tesla is 19 years old, ranked 4th with 2.4 percent allocation in S&P,” he said in another tweet. “Elon was the proud father, Tesla has grown up. An executioner, Tim Cook-like is needed, not Elon.”

Leo owned about 22.6 million Tesla shares, worth $3.4 billion, and 1.23 million stock options as of August, making him the third largest individual shareholder of the company behind Musk and Oracle founder Larry Ellison, according to Bloomberg.

Leo is the chairman and cofounder of SHI International Corp., a corporate software company. He is the world’s 398th richest person with a net worth of $5.8 billion on Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.

Leo told Forbes in October 2021 he is “Elon’s fanboy.” Tesla stock was trading at its record high at the time. Since then, it has plunged more than 60 percent.