Peter Vanham in Fortune:

Wherever you stand on the shareholder vs. stakeholder capitalism debate, there is one thing everyone can probably agree on: The idea that corporate America is built on shareholder primacy is largely a myth. The most powerful stakeholder in many U.S. listed companies is the CEO and chairman, followed by the board, and their interests often trump those of others when conflicts arise.

Two events from the past week underline this point, which has been argued by legal scholars on all sides of the ideological spectrum since the 1930s until the present day.The first is that CEO Elon Musk threatened to move the Tesla headquarters from Delaware to Texas, following a judge’s decision to void his $56 billion pay package. The second is that Exxon continues to sue one of its activist shareholders for repeatedly pushing for a proxy vote on its carbon emissions reduction plan, even after the shareholder in question backed out of his proposal.

What Exxon and Elon tell us about the ‘myth of the shareholder franchise’