Tesla announces November annual meeting under pressure from shareholders

Tesla has scheduled an annual shareholders meeting for November, one day after the electric vehicle company came under pressure from major shareholders to do so.

Billionaire Elon Musk’s company said in a regulatory filing on Thursday that the meeting will be held on Nov. 6. A group of more than 20 Tesla shareholders said in a letter to the company a day earlier that it needed to provide public notice of the annual meeting.

Texas law states businesses must hold annual meetings within 13 months of their last one, if shareholders request it. But the law also allows for “written consent instead of the annual meeting” to be executed within the 13-month timeframe. Tesla is incorporated in Texas.

The annual meeting, given Tesla’s fortunes this year, has the potential to be a raucous event and it is unclear how investors will react to the delay, which is rare for any major U.S. corporation.

Tesla shares have plunged 27% this year, largely due to blowback over Musk’s affiliation with President Trump, as well as rising competition.

Many shareholders have been miffed by Musk’s participation in the Trump administration this year, saying he needs to focus on his EV company, which is facing extraordinary pressures.

“An annual meeting provides shareholders with the opportunity to hear directly from the board about these concerns, and to vote for or against directors, the board’s approach to executive compensation, and other matters of material importance,” the group said in the letter.

Tesla’s last shareholders meeting was on June 13 of last year, when investors voted to restore Musk’s record $44.9-billion pay package that was thrown out by a Delaware judge earlier that year.

Tesla also said in its regulatory filing on Thursday that July 31 is the new deadline for the submission of proposals to be included in the proxy statement. In a January filing, Tesla said it would file its proxy statement for this year’s annual meeting by the end of April.

However, the company filed an amended report on April 30, saying that it didn’t have a date for the meeting yet. Tesla also said in that filing that it was creating a special committee to look at Musk’s compensation as chief executive.

Also on Thursday, Musk said that the Grok chatbot will be heading to Tesla vehicles.

“Grok is coming to Tesla vehicles very soon. Next week at the latest,” Musk said on social media platform X, in response to a post stating that Grok implementation on Teslas wasn’t announced on a Grok live stream Wednesday.

Grok was developed by Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI and pitched as an alternative to “woke AI” interactions from rival chatbots like Google’s Gemini or OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Chapman writes for the Associated Press.