Tesla (TSLA) recently received the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) nod to allow retail shareholders to give standing instructions to vote alongside the board. Retail investors aren't usually enthusiastic about participating in voting, and institutional investors typically decide the outcome, even at Tesla, which has a large army of retail shareholders, many of whom are Elon Musk fans.
This news might not make headlines another day, but it arrives amid reports of a potential merger of Tesla and SpaceX (SPCX). Tesla has called the shareholder voting program the Issuer Voluntary Retail Voting Program (IVRVP), and it would give participating shareholders two choices. The first would be to grant blanket approval on all matters, while the second option would apply to “all matters except contested director elections […] or any acquisition, merger or divestiture transaction that, under applicable state law or stock exchange rules, requires approval of the company’s shareholders.”
