Elon Musk Is the New ‘Technoking of Tesla’

Tesla Inc. said Chief Executive Elon Musk has changed his title at the company to “Technoking of Tesla,” extending an irreverent streak in the 49-year-old’s leadership of the electric-vehicle maker.

The company also said Chief Financial Officer Zach Kirkhorn will have the title of “Master of Coin.” Both Mr Musk and Mr Kirkhorn will maintain their respective positions as CEO and financial chief, according to a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.

The company didn’t explain the meaning of the titles and didn’t respond to an inquiry. Mr Kirkhorn’s new title might carry echoes of Tesla’s ambitions around cryptocurrency. Earlier this year, Tesla said that it had invested $1.5 billion in bitcoin and that it aims to start accepting bitcoin as payment from car buyers.

Over the weekend, bitcoin crossed $60,000 for the first time Saturday before falling back. A steady stream of institutional demand has been credited with driving much of bitcoin’s rally since the start of 2020, when it traded near $7,000.

Other companies have also embraced bitcoin in recent months. Square Inc., which shares bitcoin advocate Jack Dorsey as its CEO with Twitter Inc., acquired about $50 million worth for its corporate treasury in October. Bank of New York Mellon Corp. said it would start treating bitcoin like any other financial asset, and Mastercard Inc. said it would integrate bitcoin into its payments network this year.

Most job titles for corporate leaders conform to a narrow set of variations, but some Silicon Valley companies have previously used fanciful language to describe workers’ roles. For years, some companies have used terms such as “guru,” “jedi” or “ninja” to colour job descriptions that involve expertise or mental agility. Other colourful titles to emerge include chief happiness officer, chief futurist and chief digital evangelist.

Tesla disclosed the title changes amid signs of a bumpier road ahead than in 2020. Rivals are showing early signs of eating into its market-share lead in electric-vehicle sales. The company briefly shut down some of its car production at its lone U.S. plant last month due to parts shortages. Tesla also has said it expects lower Model S sedan and Model X sport-utility vehicle output this quarter as it introduces updated versions of the vehicles, though it is increasing output of its Model Y compact sport-utility vehicle in China.

Shares in Tesla soared more than 700% last year, then fell more than 25% earlier this month and are little changed for the year. The company last year achieved record car deliveries, posted its first full-year of profit and landed a spot on the S&P 500 index.

Mr Musk’s new title could be intended to reflect Tesla’s view that it is the source of technology disruption over the long term, Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives wrote in a research memo, pointing to the company’s autonomous-driving work and its strides in battery technology.

Mr Musk’s role as Tesla’s public face hasn’t kept him from pulling cheeky provocations. Breaking away from the mould of big-company CEOs who make carefully worded public statements, Mr Musk often posts Twitter messages with freewheeling thoughts about subjects ranging from Tesla’s share price to science-fiction topics and online memes.

Tweeting has gotten Mr Musk in trouble with regulators. In 2018 he announced on Twitter that he was considering plans to take the auto maker private, a claim later deemed misleading by the SEC after it became clear he didn’t have funding finalized for such a move.

He denied wrongdoing but eventually settled with a deal that included him giving up his position as chairman of Tesla and agreeing to have any of his Twitter messages relating to the auto maker’s business reviewed before publishing them.

Mr Musk’s ownership stake in the company helped him surpass Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos as the world’s richest man this year.

Also, Tesla on Monday named Jerome Guillen, who has run the company’s automotive business, as its president of Heavy Trucking. He oversaw the truck project in a previous role and, before joining Tesla in 2010, worked on trucks at Daimler AG.

The appointment comes as the car maker ramps up activity around its delayed semitrailer truck.

Tesla over the weekend tweeted a video of the electric cab driving on a test track. Mr Musk has said the supply of sufficient batteries has been holding back the truck. “If we were to make the Semi like right now, which we could easily go into production with the Semi, but we would not have enough cells for it right now,” Mr Musk said on the company’s latest earnings call in January.

Millennial women’s wealth is outpacing men’s as a new generation inherits and grows their assets at a wider scale than ever before, according to RBC Wealth Management.

In a survey of roughly 2,000 men and women with at least $1 million in investable assets, millennial women respondents had an average of $4.6 million, compared with $3.8 million for women of all age groups and $4.5 million for all men.

Inheritance is one part of the picture, as baby boomers are expected to transfer $124 trillion to the next generation, but so is the progress millennial women have made in the world of business, investment and lucrative professional careers as they close the gap with men.

“Millennial women are catching up, or have outpaced the males as far as their wealth building,” said Angie O’Leary, head of wealth strategies at RBC. “We know that’s coming from a more diversified set of investments, such as entrepreneurship, real estate and of course, investments [in financial markets].”

Millennial women, now in their 30s and 40s, tend to differ from earlier generations of women more than they do from men in terms of their source of wealth. While investments were the largest driver of wealth across all categories, millennial women cited business ownership, innovation, and executive roles far more than Gen X or boomer women.

More than 60% of millennial women cited business ownership and more than 40% mentioned executive roles, but neither exceeded 22% for either Gen Xers and Boomers. Younger women also grew their fortunes from professional sports or arts 39% of the time, compared with just 6% and 1% for Gen Xers and Boomers, respectively.

In terms of inheritance, the gap between generations was smaller. About 37% of men and 35% of women cited family money as a source of wealth overall, breaking down to 44% of millennials, 30% of Gen X and 33% of boomer women.

With women controlling so much wealth, their spending and investments as a group are evolving and extending into areas previously considered stereotypically male such as real estate, cars and watches, O’Leary said. “Women are starting to look a lot like their male counterparts when it comes to investments, real estate, philanthropy,” she said. “That’s a really interesting emerging female economy.”

In real estate, for example, single women made up 20% of home buyers in 2024 up from 11% in 1981, when the National Association of Realtors began tracking the data. By contrast, single men make up 8% of the market and have never exceeded 10%, according to NAR.

While men and women shared largely similar priorities overall in terms of well-being, relationships, legacy and personal drive, younger generations of women were successively more likely to value drive and personal power, and successively less likely to rank relationships and social bonds—though that could also be a function of age and stage of life.

“This generational shift suggests evolving societal norms and responsibilities, where younger women seek personal achievements, while older cohorts value nurturing connections and community stability, affecting their financial and lifestyle choices,” the report said.

Elon Musk Is the New ‘Technoking of Tesla’

The chief executive will retain his role while changing his title at the electric-vehicle maker

A survey of people with at least $1 million in investable assets found women in their 30s and 40s look nothing like older generations in terms of assets and priorities