*By Jeffrey Marcus* Tesla's chairman and CEO Elon Musk escaped an attempt by some shareholders Tuesday to strip him of one of his jobs running the electric car company he founded 15 years ago. Musk will remain as chairman after he fended off an effort by an investor group to remove him and oust three board members loyal to him, including Musk's brother Kimbal. The vote failed by a "super majority," the company said, which is not surprising. Any vote would take two-thirds to pass, and Musk himself reportedly owns one-fifth of the company's shares. Other developments from the shareholders meeting include: * Tesla announced plans to build a factory in China, a move that would allow the car company to avoid import tariffs there. The Chinese government recently announced it would allow electric car makers to own factories in China without a domestic partner. Tesla's head of global sales, Robin Ren, said the factory would be in Shanghai, and Musk said the factory would assemble cars and build batteries in the same place, [CNBC reported](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/05/tesla-talks-shanghai-factory-at-shareholder-meeting.html). * With the help of a new third assembly line at the company's California factory, Musk said Tesla will likely be able to produce 5,000 Model 3 vehicles a week by the end of June. The plant is already producing an average of 3,500 week, he said, and the grueling months-long effort to ramp up production has been worth it. "It's been the most excruciating, hellish months I've maybe ever had, but I think we're getting there," Musk said [according to The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/05/business/tesla-once-a-wall-street-darling-faces-investor-challenge.html). * Despite fatal crashes involving Tesla's Autopilot feature, the company is pressing ahead, even offering free trials for customers who are not certain they want to spend another $5,000 on a non-existent chauffeur, [Wired magazine](https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-tesla-shareholders-meeting/) reported. * New models are on deck, including the all-wheel drive Model 3, expected to begin limited production later this year; the Model Y, which will go into production in 2020; and the semi truck and the new roadster expected around the same time. * Musk did not lash out the way he did during Tesla's quarterly earnings call last month, when he antagonized analysts and institutional investors. But it was still an emotional shareholders meeting for Musk, who had his authority challenged and his vision questioned. He got a little choked up, [Reuters reported](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-shareholders/teslas-musk-says-quite-likely-will-meet-model-3-goal-directors-re-elected-idUSKCN1J12YT). "At Tesla we build our cars with love," Musk said. "At a lot of other companies, they're built by marketing or the finance department and there's no soul. We're not perfect, but we pour our heart and soul into it and we really care." Watch [video](https://www.tesla.com/shareholdermeeting) of the full shareholders meeting on Tesla's website. For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/elon-musk-lives-to-fight-another-day-as-chairman-of-tesla).

Share:
More In Business
A Closer Look at the Gaming Sector and its Future in the Metaverse
The gaming industry has been under the spotlight so far this year following some big mergers and acquisitions. This week featured earnings of three major gaming companies, but also Meta and for the latter, things are not doing too hot. Joining Cheddar News to break it all down was Kenny Rosenblatt, President and Co-Founder of Arkadium.
Economy Appears to Be Back on Track in 2022 With Job Growth
Following the surprising big beat on estimates for the January jobs report, William M. Rodgers III, vice president and director of the Institute for Economic Equity at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, joined Cheddar News to break down the data. “We ended 2021 with a strong crescendo to a recovery that had taken hold, and we started 2022 in good fashion." He also discussed the dueling pressures of wage growth and inflation.
Amazon Strong Growth Attributed to the Cloud Despite Retail Headwinds
While it was a volatile week in tech as Meta experienced the biggest one-day drop in the history of the U.S. stock market, industry giant Amazon reported 40 percent growth — largely on the strength of the cloud. Dan Ives, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities, joined Cheddar News to break down how the e-commerce company stock managed to pop despite headwinds against its core retail business. "It's all about cloud because of sum of the parts, you could argue, amazon could be $3,500/$4,000 stock just based on cloud," he said. Ives also addressed the apparent the differing impact of Apple iOS changes on Facebook and Snapchat.
Investors May Be Wary of Ford Due to Ongoing Supply Chain Issues
Following Ford's earnings miss, the stock price dropped despite a bullish outlook from the auto giant. Karl Brauer, an executive analyst with ISeeCars.com, joined Cheddar to break down why investors may not be sold on the carmaker because of the ongoing factor of supply constraints. "The product is not an issue. There's really good product coming from them, including the electric vehicle side, and the demand is not an issue. There's plenty of demand, but nobody really has a solid grasp on when we're going to get past the supply chain issue," said Brauer.
Pinterest Reports Strong Q4 Earnings Beat
Image-sharing app Pinterest reported big beats on its Q4 earnings for the top and bottom lines. The social platform surprised investors after seeing a decline in users while earnings and revenue were much higher than expected.
Load More