Elon Musk’s Magnificent Seven: How Dream Deal May Test Board

‘You can’t have a board that is just an echo chamber’
Shareholders hope SolarCity merger will bring director reform

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By Dana Hull

October 9, 2016 at 11:00 PM UTC

Updated on

October 10, 2016 at 8:35 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

Elon Musk has brushed off doubts about his plan to marry Tesla Motors Inc. and SolarCity Corp. with reassurances the idea is sound, including that his board is unanimously behind him.

That’s hardly surprising. Six of Tesla’s seven directors are Musk insiders with SolarCity ties, a setup often criticized as overly cozy. “You can’t have a board that is just an echo chamber,” said Vivek Wadhwa, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and longtime critic of boards’ lacking diversity.