Tesla’s new chair will rein Musk in

In choosing Robyn Denholm to keep Elon Musk in check, Tesla picked a numbers-first executive who climbed the ranks of tech companies.

Those who know her say her nononsense ways may be exactly what the mercurial CEO needs to get out of his own way.

“Everything about her is rational, reasonable, and warm. I’m not surprised she got the job,” Scott McNealy, the co-founder and former chair of Sun Microsystems, said in a phone interview. “If Elon listens to her, he’ll be way more successful.”

As Tesla’s chair, Denholm will be responsible for the tall tasks of reining-in the celebrity CEO Musk and guiding an electric-vehicle (EV) maker that’s still in a phase of costly expansion and vulnerable to financial setbacks.

While Tesla just celebrated a blowout quarter in which it posted a rare profit, many analysts and investors suspect that further capital increases could be needed before the company is on firm footing.

Leading the charge to step up oversight of Musk could be particularly tricky.

Tesla’s board, which Denholm has been on since 2014, didn’t prove to be effective in controlling some of his worst impulses this summer.

Her ascendancy to the role of chair was precipitated by Musk’s run-in with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over his problematic tweets about taking the company private.

Denholm began her career at audit and accounting services at Arthur Andersen, and left the firm for a position in the finance department of Toyota Motor’s Australian subsidiary.

She joined Sun in 1996 and was there for 11 years, including a position in the pioneering computer company’s top leadership group. She declined to be interviewed.

“She seems to be supremely competent in financial communications,” said Yale School of Management’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld. “Of the likely choices, I think they made the best pick. Her strengths are not his, and vice versa.”