Robyn Denholm, Tesla Board Chair
In 2018, after Elon Musk tweeted, “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured,” the SEC was breathing down the board’s neck, so they voted to oust Musk as chairman and fill his seat with Robyn Denholm.
Before she was brought in to save Tesla stock from Musk’s recklessness, Denholm’s career was fairly anodyne. The Australian economist did her time in the telecom trenches: Sun Microsystems, then Juniper Networks as CFO, then landing at Telstra as COO. She was deep in the machinery of B2B tech—the kind of logistics and operational rigor that makes sure servers don't crash. In 2014, she brought that energy to Tesla's board as an independent director. For four years, she was just another face in the boardroom photos before being called up to her current position.
As Chair, her job is theoretically to oversee the CEO. In practice, she helped convince the board to approve Musk's $1 trillion pay package. Shareholder lawsuits have hammered the board for lacking independence. Critics also point out that Denholm’s not only been “lackadaisical” in her CEO-oversight duties. Based in Sydney, she’s also on the other side of the planet from Tesla's operations.
Nonetheless, the chair role has afforded Denholm what she’s described as “life-changing” wealth, mostly earned by selling her company shares. Though the $198 million she made last year selling falling Tesla stock has come under scrutiny, Denholm’s net worth is now valued at over $625 million.
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