Industry experts in law and AI safety have asked me to write about the fact Tesla lacks general counsel stability.
Apparently this is a canary, suggesting to outside observers that the company engages in illegal practices that no lawyer wants to be around. It is an interesting hypothesis to consider.
Notably, I looked at 2018 news from Reuters.
Tesla Inc has hired Dane Butswinkas, a Washington, D.C. trial lawyer, as its general counsel, the electric car manufacturer said late on Thursday.
Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk had hired Butswinkas to help settle a case with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Bloomberg had reported in October.
Musk and Tesla paid $20 million each in fines to settle the case, which stemmed from the billionaire CEO’s Twitter posts in August about taking the company private.
Butswinkas, the chairman of major Washington law firm Williams & Connolly, is replacing Todd Maron at Tesla.
Maron, who also served as Musk’s divorce lawyer, had led Tesla’s legal department since 2013.
Divorce lawyer? Elon Musk used his personal divorce lawyer, Todd Maron, to be Tesla’s general counsel? Kind of makes sense why he was bounced out when the SEC came knocking and investigations got real.
That Reuters report also points to a Tesla PR statement where Butswinkas says he joined for a big and important mission.
Tesla’s mission is bigger than Tesla – one that is critical to the future of our planet.
Sounds important.
Not exactly aligned with reality though. Musk was in deep trouble with fraud allegations and the SEC apparently looked ready to push over a personal divorce lawyer. Different mission, really.
That’s December 2018.
Then, basically after holiday break, when Butswinkas is only starting to warm his seat “critical to the future of our planet” and look around… he quits in January 2019.
Dane Butswinkas Resumes Trial Practice at Williams & Connolly. Williams & Connolly announced today that partner Dane Butswinkas will resume practicing law with the firm this month. Mr. Butswinkas has spent the past several months assisting Elon Musk and Tesla, Inc., first as outside counsel and most recently as General Counsel.
One month. How critical was that mission?
Consider also a total shift in tone when Butswinkas leaves, emphasizing being in a place called home around quality people regardless of any mission.
If home is where the heart is, then Williams & Connolly has always been my home. I’m grateful to the firm for its continuous support, and I now look forward to resuming my trial practice with my colleagues, clients, and long-time friends.
Subtle.
Reads to me like he’s throwing huge shade on Tesla being a shallow, empty and cruel place nobody would ever want to stay.
Then it becomes clear that Tesla can’t hire anyone, as the CEO’s personal divorce lawyer perhaps was covering up things? Or he let the CEO do things nobody else would?
Jonathan Chang, who had worked under the divorce lawyer, was quickly promoted. But by the end of that year, Chang was out too.
Then an Alan Prescott was hired. He lasted almost two years, basically rising to be named Tesla’s top lawyer right before he quits in 2021.
My lawyer colleagues and friends yell at me that this has so many red flags already, there has to be something very bad going on.
No?
General counsel folk don’t abruptly leave a job like this, I’m told. Three in a row, despite the positive narrative of Tesla to the public (e.g. market valuation)?
So then Tesla runs without anyone in the seat during massively ballooning valuations until two years later in 2023 when Brandon Ehrhart is named General Counsel (including a public statement that legal director Dinna Eskin, who journalists suspected of running things, would be pushed aside) to go “hardcore“.
Brandon Ehrhart is company’s sixth legal leader since late 2019
Seventh since early 2019?
I lost count.
That’s a huge turnover rate for the top lawyer job, unheard of and ringing alarm bells, capped with a shift to an aggressive outward prosecution and distraction model after crucial years of no transparency.
I’m not a lawyer, but I can understand why anyone looking at technology safety and the law would have some questions about what might be behind such turnover and new aggressive stance. Who has the answers?
Related: Tesla Whistleblowers Allege Books Cooked Since 2017