Musk Hands Tesla’s Potential xAI Investment Decision to Shareholders: “It’s Not Up to Me”

During Tesla’s Q2 earnings call, Elon Musk surprised listeners by saying that any potential investment by the automaker into his AI startup xAI will not be his unilateral decision—it will be left to Tesla’s shareholders. He was responding to a question about whether Tesla could fund or take an equity stake in the rapidly evolving artificial intelligence company. “Shareholders can propose whatever they want,” Musk said. “This isn’t my decision.” Although he recently hinted on his own social platform X that he would welcome a tie-up between Tesla and xAI, he’s now clearly deferring the final say. Tesla’s CFO Vaibhav Taneja added that this isn’t the venue to discuss such matters, suggesting that the company will leave it to formal shareholder processes. Tesla’s next annual shareholder meeting is scheduled for November 6, potentially giving investors the chance to raise and vote on the issue. Musk didn’t say whether the proposal would be on the official agenda, but he made it clear a vote is inevitable.

xAI: Grok, Tesla, and the Future of AI Musk founded xAI in 2023, and the company is still finding its footing in the hyper-competitive AI landscape. Its main product is a chatbot called Grok, marketed as sharper, more sarcastic, and “more honest” than ChatGPT. Unlike rivals such as OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google DeepMind, xAI hasn’t yet signed major enterprise customers or widely opened up access to developers. Still, xAI already collaborates with Tesla. The startup is a corporate customer of Tesla Energy, purchasing Megapack utility-scale batteries. Tesla also has ambitious plans for Grok inside its vehicles, where the AI could serve both drivers and passengers. xAI’s momentum is additionally supported by other Musk-led, VC-backed firms. Bloomberg reported that SpaceX invested around $2 billion into xAI in June. That has sparked questions about whether Tesla—Musk’s most valuable publicly traded company—should invest in the AI venture at all. Musk has previously insisted that Tesla shareholders should be involved in xAI’s likely expansion, given the technological overlap and shared leadership between the two companies. “It’s a good idea for Tesla shareholders to have access to AI,” he wrote on X earlier this year.

Tesla Shareholders Have Been Here Before This wouldn’t be the first time Tesla shareholders were asked to vote on one of Musk’s controversial proposals. In 2016, they approved Tesla’s $2.6 billion acquisition of SolarCity, a solar company founded by Musk’s cousins that was struggling at the time. The deal drew lawsuits and criticism over potential conflicts of interest, but Musk defended it as a long-term strategic move. Now, with Musk simultaneously running Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, X, and Neuralink, concerns about overlap, governance, and fairness are resurfacing. Critics argue that Tesla—being a public company with a fiduciary duty to shareholders—should be cautious about supporting Musk’s other ventures unless there’s a clear, demonstrable benefit. In 2023, Musk even ran an impromptu poll on X asking users whether Tesla should continue developing xAI. Most respondents said yes. Musk later noted that Tesla’s board would consider the option. A formal answer, however, never arrived—until now.

What’s Next? If Tesla shareholders formally propose an investment and the resolution makes it onto the agenda of the upcoming annual meeting in November, the vote could mark the beginning of a new strategic chapter—one that would bring Tesla even closer to Musk’s ever-expanding ambitions in artificial intelligence.

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