Who Owns Tesla? Since Tesla is a publicly traded company, its ownership is distributed among several shareholders. Elon Musk is the majority shareholder of the company and currently holds about 13% of its shares. The next highest individual shareholder is Lawrence J. Ellison, the former CEO of Oracle, who holds about 1.4% to 1.5% of the company’s shares. Between them come institutional shareholders like The Vanguard Group at a 6.55% stake in the company, Natixis Investment Managers International SA at 6.01%, and BlackRock Fund Advisors at 3.61%.
Other major investors include SSgA Funds Management, Inc., Baillie Gifford & Co., Fidelity Management & Research Company, Geode Capital Management LLC, and Capital Research & Management Co., among others.
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Top Individual Shareholders
Elon Musk
Elon Musk is the largest individual shareholder of Tesla stocks by far. He owns 265.4 million shares of Tesla, representing 23.5% of total outstanding shares, according to an SEC filing on August 4th, 2022. That’s more than three times as many as the next largest institutional shareholder. Since Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter using portions of his own stock, the value of said shares has decreased. According to Kamil Franek, a business analytics professional, Musk is still the largest shareholder in the company, with more than 13% of the shares.
In addition to his massive stake in Tesla, Musk is the CEO of SpaceX, Neuralink, and The Boring Company, and he was a co-founder of PayPal Holdings, Inc., (PYPL). As one would expect from such a successful executive and entrepreneur, Elon Musk has become incredibly wealthy over the years, with Forbes listing him as the 2nd richest person in the world with a net worth hovering around $192.7 billion.
Since its founding in 2003, Elon Musk has been an integral part of Tesla as a co-founder and the company’s largest shareholder. In 2008, he assumed the role of CEO and propelled the company to unprecedented levels of success. His drive for electric vehicles and innovative leadership have turned Tesla into one of the world’s leading automotive companies across many markets.
Lawrence J. Ellison
Lawrence J. Ellison is one of the top individual shareholders of Tesla, Inc., owning 1.5% of the company’s total shares. This past year, documents submitted to the SEC disclosed that Larry Ellison currently owns 15,290,975 shares of Tesla.
Ellison is a co-founder, CTO, executive chairman, and former CEO of Oracle. He led for nearly four decades until September 2014, when he stepped down from his position as CEO to become Executive Chairman and Chief Technology Officer (CTO). As of March 1, 2023, Forbes ranked him as the fourth-richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of $113.5 billion.
Zachary J. Kirkhorn
As of August 2022, Zachary Kirkhorn held a total of 692,486 beneficially owned shares of Tesla, which represents about 0.05% of its total shares. As Chief Financial Officer (CFO) since March 2019, Kirkhorn has been instrumental in making mission-critical decisions at the company, such as managing and controlling expenditures while keeping operations profitable and efficient. Prior to his current role, he served as vice president of finance, financial planning, and business operations between December 2018 and March 2019. He joined Tesla back in 2010 and has held various roles over the years until his vice president of finance appointment.
In his role as CFO, one of Kirkhorn’s main goals was to improve the profitability of the company, which included focusing on delivering better efficiency through cost reduction initiatives across all areas of business operations, such as manufacturing processes and materials utilization, for instance. This was done in part by improving gross margin structure across product lines and ensuring that pricing effectively reflects current market conditions.
Kimbal Musk
Kimbal Musk, the younger brother of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, is one of Tesla’s top individual shareholders. According to the aforementioned SEC filing, Kimbal had 683,490 shares of Tesla worth more than $210 million as of Q3 2022. This represents 0.05% of the company’s total outstanding shares and puts him among some of the largest individual shareholders in the company.
In addition to his vested interest in the company, Kimbal is also a board member at both SpaceX and Tesla. Despite being related to Elon Musk, he has been involved independently as an investor in many startups and businesses over the years, including The Kitchen Restaurant Group, which he founded with Hugo Matheson, along with several sustainable farming initiatives. His enthusiasm for entrepreneurship was instilled early on through his involvement at Zip2 before it was sold to Compaq Computer Corporation.
He has since founded a non-profit organization called Big Green, which works towards supplying every public elementary school in America with a garden where students can learn about stewardship of their environment as they grow vegetables while they’re young.
Top Institutional Shareholders
The Vanguard Group, Inc.
The Vanguard Group, Inc., is the second-largest shareholder of Tesla and the largest institutional holder of the company’s shares, with a 6.55% stake worth about $35.8 billion as of March 2022, according to CNN Money. Vanguard owns 206.7 million shares in Tesla and controls about that same amount at Tesla’s shareholder meetings. As one of the world’s largest asset managers, Vanguard has significant influence over public companies, including Tesla, due to its size and large ownership percentage.
Vanguard is unique compared to other large asset managers because it has no direct owners since it legally belongs to its fund holders, who own those funds, which results in diluted ownership decisions being made by insiders at the company. This allows Vanguard to have a strong presence at shareholder meetings due to their extra votes and abilities to sway decisions — especially when combined with their position as one of the largest shareholders for a public company like Tesla.
When looking at individual investments from The Vanguard Group concerning its 6.55% stake in Tesla stock, it’s important to note that they do not directly own any shares but rather hold them through an investment fund such as their “500 Index Fund” or “Vanguard Institutional Index Fund.” These are passively managed index funds that contain over 500 stocks, including some of the biggest names on Wall Street, such as Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft — all of which make up part of the 6.55% stake held by The Vanguard Group in Tesla stock.
It’s also important to note that, while The Vanguard Group isn’t a direct owner or decision-maker regarding individual stocks they hold, they are able to use their assets under management (AUM) and overall market capitalization power when it comes time for shareholder voting on significant issues — such as AGMs or board director elections —, acting as unspoken stewards for millions of investors worldwide who can’t be involved at each meeting individually, but still want their opinions represented there effectively by someone knowledgeable about investing matters that affect them long term as The Vanguard Group does.
Natixis Investment Managers International SA
Natixis Investment Managers International SA is a major institutional investor of Tesla, Inc., one of the most iconic companies in the electric vehicle and renewable energy markets. Natixis Investment Managers International SA is the second-largest institutional shareholder of Tesla, owning 6.01% of its shares. As of March 2023, the market value of Natixis Investment Managers’ stake in Tesla was estimated to be $32.8 billion, which consisted of 189.7 million shares owned by them.
Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Natixis Investment Managers is a leading global asset management firm with total assets under management (AUM) worth €1.31 trillion ($1.4 trillion).
Natixis Investment Manager’s investment philosophy favors concentrating investments in those stocks that have seen consistent growth over time rather than making activist investments or trading strategies, which could yield high returns in the short term but may also suffer large losses with similar rapidity. This strategy has worked well for them, considering that most successful companies are those that maintain steady growth over long periods, relentlessly focusing on their core objectives through both good and bad times, while avoiding distractions such as unnecessary acquisitions or mergers, or other forms of aggressive capital deployment strategies otherwise common among investors seeking big short term gains.
BlackRock Fund Advisors
BlackRock Fund Advisors is the third-largest institutional shareholder of Tesla, with a 3.61% stake in the company and 113 million shares. BlackRock holds an estimated $19.7 billion worth of Tesla stock and controls 113 million shareholder votes at this time. This gives it significant influence over company decisions as well as its competitors’ decisions.
The impact of BlackRock extends beyond just Tesla, though. With a staggering $10 trillion in assets under management, it is the largest asset manager in the world. Other large asset managers are some of its largest shareholders; this includes Vanguard Group at number one, followed by BlackRock itself, and State Street Global Advisors LLC in third place.
Conclusion
Tesla, Inc., helmed by its CEO and majority shareholder Elon Musk, has made a remarkable journey to the top of the S&P 500 and S&P 100. Driven by an impressive portfolio ranging from electric vehicles to energy generation and storage systems, it has achieved tremendous success; Tesla’s market cap is ten times higher than that of General Motors Co. With further innovative advancements under Musk’s leadership and more investments in its products, Tesla is likely to stay at the forefront of the automotive industry for years.