Tesla's now former chief accounting officer Dave Morton quit the company after concluding CEO Elon Musk wasn't interested in accounting details around a potential take-private transaction, according to a person familiar with the matter who has spoken to Morton in recent days.
Morton resigned September 4, according to a company filing released on Friday. Morton said in the filing "the level of public attention placed on the company, as well as the pace within the company, have exceeded my expectations."
Morton joined Tesla on August 6 after Tesla approached him for the chief accounting job. Morton saw an opportunity to work with a visionary like Musk and make life easier for him by helping with some of the necessary housekeeping, according to the person familiar with Morton's thinking.
The day after he started, Musk tweeted he was considering taking the company private with "funding secured." Morton, who left his role as Seagate's CFO to join Tesla, was not flustered by the tweet and met with Musk to go over various details that would make a take-private difficult. He brought up specific details such as equity change of control provisions and potential step-ups in the value of Tesla's debt associated with a new controlling shareholder.
Musk and other executives didn't seem to care about the various financial obstacles, which concerned Morton, said the person. When Morton offered advice about capitalizing the company through other means rather than going private, he was ignored, said the person.
After two weeks or so at the company, Morton concluded he wasn't being heard or understood. He then started to think about leaving, the person said. The SEC reportedly served Tesla with a subpoena on August 15 about Musk's intentions. Musk eventually abandoned his plan to go private on August 25 after CNBC reported Morgan Stanley was planning to be retained to seek financing for a transaction, suggesting funding for a deal hadn't been secured.
Morton joined the company as chief accounting officer with the expectation he would eventually take over or Ahuja as CFO, the person said. Ahuja returned to the CFO position in 2017 after retiring in 2015.
A person familiar with the circumstances around Morton's departure said that he did not bring any of these concerns up to Tesla at any time, including in his exit interview.
"I want to be clear that I believe strongly in Tesla, its mission and its future prospects, and I have no disagreements with Tesla's leadership or its financial reporting," Morton wrote in his statement today.
Morton is the latest in a wave of execs who have recently left or announced they would leave the company, including engineering leader Doug Field and communications chief Sarah O' Brien. Also on Thursday, Bloomberg reported that HR chief Gaby Toledano, currently on leave, would not be returning to the company.
Tesla declined to comment beyond the official filing. Morton couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
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