Tesla is set to hold its annual shareholder meeting today at 1pm PDT/4pm EDT, streamed live from Gigafactory Texas.
If you’re a Tesla investor or a prospective one, the company recently added a video to its Investors Relations website under the Corporate Governance section. The video is titled, “a message from Robyn Denholm, our Board Chair.”
You can watch the 5-minute and 35-second video below—we’ve also included a transcript as well. Denholm essentially gives an overview of Tesla as a company, a message directed to current and potential investors:
Full transcript below of Denholm’s message:
“Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. We’ve made incredible progress towards that goal but we still have a long way to go. The good news is that we’re up for the challenge. We have a strategy in place to help us achieve our goals and our bold Mission and the right leadership team to execute it. We also have a dedicated and engaged board of directors that supports the team in the pursuit of these goals each and every step of the way.
As a board, we strive to create a framework of governance that allows our management continuity, adaptability to the inevitable challenges and the long-term value creation for all shareholders. This framework is one of the reasons that we’ve been able to make decisions, often bold ones, that unlock growth, drive long-term value and protect your interests as shareholders and ensure our actions and choices aligned with our values.
To learn more about Tesla’s Mission, I encourage each and every one of you to view our latest impact report available at tesla.com forward slash impact. Just as we hire great employees at Tesla, we must also build a world-class board of directors by sourcing exceptional Talent. Our nominating and corporate governance committee continuously searches for the best candidates. We have added four independent directors and nominees in the last three years alone.
Last year we appointed Joe Gebbia, a founder of Airbnb, who brings experience in design, brand development and management of complex regulatory environments globally. This year we’ve nominated JB Straubel. JB is one of Tesla’s co-founders with extensive operational experience both inside and outside of Tesla and an exceptional technologist with first-hand knowledge of Tesla’s technology.
Our employees are critical to the success of our mission and are at the heart of everything that we do. To sustain our rapid pace of innovation, we must attract, retain and develop excellent and diverse Talent globally with a passion for our mission. We do this by maintaining one of the world’s most exhilarating and impactful product roadmaps. I personally think you’d be very hard-pressed to find a more exciting place to work. But we also do this by designing competitive compensation and benefits programs that help bring in the best and brightest people.
Our compensation committee is tasked with overseeing the design of these programs. Nearly every employee is given the opportunity to receive Tesla stock as part of their compensation package. We believe shared ownership of the company is one of the key attributes of working at Tesla and is critical for attracting and retaining great talent.
Beyond compensation, it’s the board’s responsibility to oversee human resource programs at Tesla, ensuring our employees have access to the tools, services and benefits that they need and the right environment and culture to succeed. Your views and those of all of our shareholders are extremely important to us. The input we receive from you is fundamental to our corporate governance structure.
We meet with institutional investors throughout the year to address a range of key topics including short and long-term strategies, capital allocation, governance, succession planning, environmental and social issues. The insights that we receive from those meetings are critical to how we plan for Tesla’s future.
Similarly, we appreciate the engagement and interaction and energy of all of our individual investors. We have the largest retail base of investors of any public company in the US and we love meeting all of you at events like Investor Day, the Semi-launch event and of course our annual shareholder meeting.
To increase our day-to-day communications with our shareholders, last year we launched our shareholder platform. Any Tesla shareholder, regardless of holding size, can sign up and stay informed about investor-related topics such as our quarterly filings, and our event announcements and you are eligible for selection to attend Tesla’s events in person.
In closing, I’d like to say a huge thank you to all of you, our investors. It’s because of your ongoing support and input that we’ve become the company that we are today and that we’ve been able to make so much progress in our mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. Thank you.”