Tesla has hired a new board member with no automotive background, but that’s not a problem as the main responsibility of Tesla’s board members these days is to sell stocks and let Elon Musk destroy the brand.
Tesla announced today that Jack Hartung, better known for being a long-time top executive of Chipotle, the Mexican restaurant brand, is joining Tesla’s board.
The company wrote in the announcement:
We are pleased to welcome Jack Hartung to Tesla’s Board of Directors, effective June 1, 2025. Jack joined Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. in 2002 and has held several leadership positions during his tenure. Most recently, Jack has been serving as President and Chief Strategy Officer, and previously served as Chief Financial and Administrative Officer, where he was responsible for all finance and accounting functions as well as supply chain, strategy and safety and asset protection.
Over the past 20+ years under Jack’s financial leadership, Chipotle has seen significant growth with over 3,700 restaurants today across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. Jack was named ‘CFO of the Year’ by Orange County Business Journal and Best CFO in the restaurant category by Institutional Investor. Jack will be retiring from his executive role on June 1st and transition to a senior advisor role with Chipotle. Jack serves on the Board of Directors for Portillo’s Inc., The Honest Company, Inc. and ZocDoc, Inc.
Hartung is joining the board at a critical moment for Tesla.
The board is being highly criticized for not doing its job of supervising the executive team, primarily Elon Musk.
Musk has long been seen as controlling Tesla’s board despite his minority ownership of Tesla. The issue led to his CEO compensation package being rescinded by a judge due to being seen as negotiating against himself.
The board have backed his every move, granted him a $55 billion CEO compensation package, and remained silent when he threatened Tesla shareholders that he would not develop AI products at Tesla unless given a larger, more controlling share of the company, or decided to fire Tesla’s entire charging team to make an example out of the head of the team.
Most recently, they have not addressed the protests at Tesla stores and product boycotts, which are attributed to Musk’s involvement in politics, angering a significant portion of the population and Tesla’s consumer base.
The board’s relaxed approach when it comes to Musk is often attributed to being populated by people who are close to Musk and have financial dealings with Musk and his businesses outside of Tesla.
They are also highly compensated to let Musk do what he wants. So much so that shareholders sued them for “overcompensation” and they agreed to return and cancel about $1 billion in compensation.
In the last few months, Tesla’s board members have sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Tesla stocks.
Due to all these issues, Tesla has been looking for a new board member who can be considered “independent” of Musk.
In its disclosure of having added Hartung to the board, Tesla claimed that his only connection to Tesla or the board is a son-in-law who works at Tesla:
“A son-in-law of Mr. Hartung has been a non-executive, salaried employee of Tesla since December 2016, and does not share a household with Mr. Hartung. He is currently a Service Technician at Tesla and earned total compensation for fiscal year 2024, including the value of equity incentives, of approximately $124,000. This compensation was determined in accordance with Tesla’s compensation practices applicable to employees with similar qualifications and responsibilities and holding similar positions.”
However, they didn’t disclose that Hartung knows Kimbal Musk, Elon’s brother and a long-time board member.
Kimbal was on Chipotle’s board from 2016 to 2019 when Hartung was a top executive at the company.
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