If we talk about founders, especially the ones who occupy the positions of chief executives, we can not overestimate the impact which their actions may make. The most striking examples are Travis Kalanick and Elon Musk, who are at the same time are entrepreneurs and stars in the media realm. Kalanick and Musk may have different background but they have the similar behavior towards media and assaults to the company, they did accept any doubt to the efficiency of the company, because the companies were begot by them and run by them. However, to run a startup with 10 people and to run a publicly traded corporation are not the same things because the CEO runs not only own investments to the company but the ones of others. Hence, being extraordinary does not mean ruin someone's investments in your company.

Elon Musk is undoubtedly an outstanding entrepreneur as well as an explorer who lives in the world of future, furthermore, he creates what was yesterday fantasy like private space transportation services, everyday electric car. The companies, Musk founded and participated in, cover various industries such as electric vehicles, space technology and solar energy. The following table lists the companies he founds or manages at the current stage. ^[1]

However, when some people admire his talent as an entrepreneur, others take delight in gossiping the negative news arising from his inappropriate behaviors. When we take a look at the consequence arisen from his indecent behaviors and the corresponding reactions from the market, we can never deny the fact that the investors would be deeply affected by the misconducts of the founder or the executives of the corporation.

In May 2018 it was reported that Tesla CEO Musk had refused to answer the questions posed by two analysts and referred them as "boring and boneheaded" during Tesla's first-quarter earnings call. This led to a backlash from investors and triggered shares skidding. ^[1] In August 2018, Musk's attitude obviously turned gentle on the second earnings call and apologized to those two analysts. This behavior along with a promise of profitability had a powerful effect on Tesla's stock. After the Musk's apology Tesla gained additional 8.3 billion dollars to its market capitalization that day. ^[2]

Indeed, the crisis that Musk caused by his increasingly arbitrary behavior is something unusual. In September 2018 Musk smoked a mix of marijuana and tobacco before cameras when he attended one of America's most popular webcast shows in California. The 'marijuana incident' combined with the resignation of two senior executives lead Tesla's shares to plunge for 6% within just a few hours after that. ^[3] In addition, Musk's does not keep his mouth shot on social media which is not always evokes positive feedback. He insulted a Thai rescue worker who has saved 12 children's lives on Twitter by calling him a pedophile. Such irresponsible behavior stripped away almost $2 billion from the company's market value. ^[4] Musk now is getting into trouble again for tweeting about decrying the work of UAW - a labor union representing workers. ^[5] What's even more surprisingly is that Musk unilaterally tweeted the consideration of privatization of Tesla and mentioned that the funding is secured, walloping the shares price drastically. ^[6] The table below briefly summarize some of the reckless behavior and the consequences it evokes. ^[7]

Furthermore, noting that the SEC has reportedly issued a subpoena to Tesla on Elon Musk's tweet regarding the privatization of Tesla and his final decision to let the company stay public in the end. ^[1] Such a subpoena would be one of the first steps in a formal inquiry. ^[2] Arguably, there are certain possibilities for Musk to violate the SEC Rule 14e-8 which aims to prevent manipulation of the stock price. ^[3] Though the SEC refuses to give comments before the final results come out and tends to keep actions implicitly ^[4] . It directly related to the key issue regarding whether the announced privatization of Tesla is untrue or half-baked. If so, there will be sufficient grounds for the SEC to suspect Elon Musk as a Tesla's CEO for committing a fraud or even market manipulation on an illegal base. ^[5] However, Musk argued that the reason why he tweeted about Tesla's privatization publicly was because he wanted all the shareholders to receive such important news from Tesla. Moreover, he explained he had reached a promising deal with the Saudi sovereign fund unreasonably posting a tweet 'funding secured'. ^[6] Even so, other than the relevant authority, several investors are filling securities fraud lawsuits against Musk, alleging that he had deliberately published false announcement to squeeze out short sellers. ^[7]

All of these abnormal behaviors and the investigation from the SEC make the investors wonder whether the companies led by such a crazy man are still worth to invest. And in case of Tesla the Board warned its wayward the CEO not to update his twitter anymore. However, Musk poured scorn on the advice. ^[8]

From all we have discussed above, it is not difficult for us to notice the key role the founders or executives played when establishing the corporate image. Clients tend to link the founders image to the corporate image since the founder's behaviors imperceptibly play a leading role for the employees and thus gradually transforming into a company's core values. ^[1]

Since the improperness of the founder or officer would directly hurt the interests of investors, then whether investors can impose any ethical restrictions on founders and/or officers or not? Indeed, various jurisdictions have set up different mechanisms which facilitate investors to impose ethical limitations on the founders or officers of the corporations.

For instance in the USA, the Code of Business Conduct of a Corporation would assist investors to impose ethical limitations on executives or founders of the corporation. Such document normally describes the ethical rules an entrepreneur should follow. The reason why most of the US corporations adopted it is probably because the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has implemented section 406 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which requires public companies to disclose whether they have equipped with the Code of Conduct (CC) for their senior financial officers. If the corporation has no CC, it needs to explain why the Code of Conduct was not introduced in the company. ^{[2] [3]} Furthermore, the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Market both set the requirements to have a Code of Ethics which would be applicable to all employees, senior management, and directors as an essential condition for public companies to be listed on markets. ^[4] In spite of the fact that the ethical standards and consequences of violations that are contained in such code may vary from company to company, at least it provides possible approach for investors to impose ethical restrictions management. In addition, the US Regulation S-K ^[5] also requires a public held company to disclose the family relations and moral character of all directors and executive officers, indirectly imposing an ethical restrictions on them.

In addition, if it goes about the restriction of founder or executives' immoral behavior and investors' interests protection, we have to mention another important role in the corporation - an independent director. An independent director is neither an executive officer of a publicly held corporation nor does he own a direct or indirect relationship with the company business. ^[6] In general investors are able to impose restrictions on executives' improper behavior by the decision of board of directors. However, since in some large publicly owned companies, the boards are increasingly dominated by chief executives officers or founders the company gradually fell under the control of such bodies. The purpose of setting up independent directors is to alleviate this phenomenon and to let them play a supervisory role to regulate the behavior of the officers, thus protecting the rights and interests of investors. The independent （non-executive）director system originated in US is now widely adopted not only by most of the European countries like UK ^[7] but also by Asian countries like China ^[8] and Middle Eastern countries like UAE ^[9] .

Based on example of Elon Musk and Travis Kalanick it is evident that every movement of founders or executive officers of a corporation may affect the interests of the investors, especially when it is talked about those publicly held corporations. To avoid unpleasant consequences the investors should think impose ethical restrictions on senior management. The founders or executive shall keep in mind that they should be cautious when referring to material events which would influence the development of the corporations and the interests of investors.