WASHINGTON  — It won’t be an easy job.

Whoever becomes the new chairman of Tesla Motors will face the formidable task of reining in Elon Musk, the charismatic, visionary chief executive with an impulsive streak, while also helping Musk achieve his dream of turning Tesla into a profitable, mass-market producer of environmentally-friendly electric cars.

Musk is giving up the chairman’s role under a settlement announced Saturday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Besides a new chairman, Tesla was also ordered to appoint two new, independent members to its board. A more assertive board could provide the kind of tighter oversight that many legal experts, and Tesla investors, say is overdue for a company of Tesla’s market value.

The settlement stemmed from a lawsuit the SEC filed charging Musk with misleading investors in August with a tweet that said he had “funding secured” for taking the company private.

Yet a more forceful board, coupled with a domineering CEO like Musk, could create conflicts at a risky time for the company. Visionary CEOs such as Apple’s Steve Jobs and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey have been forced out by strong boards of directors, though both eventually returned to their companies.

Even with the settlement, Tesla faces a daunting array of challenges.

The Justice Department has opened its own investigation into Musk’s Aug. 7 tweet, in which he said he would take the company private at $420 a share. The SEC’s lawsuit charged that the tweet, which caused Tesla’s shares to jump, was misleading because he did not actually have the funding lined up for such a move.

Tesla is also under heavy pressure to turn a profit because it is burning through $1 billion in cash every three months and, as of the end of June, had just $2.2 billion in the bank.

Musk has said the company needs to produce 7,000 cars a week to make money, a target he aimed to reach in the July-September quarter. The company is likely to report production numbers this week and financial results from that quarter in early November.

Another concern: About $1.3 billion in Tesla debt is due to be repaid by March, including $230 million in November.

Some investors might want more than a new chairman. Tesla has no chief operating officer, a critical No. 2 executive in most companies. That’s a stark contrast to other startups, such as Facebook, where Mark Zuckerberg hired Sheryl Sandberg as a highly influential COO.

In the lawsuit filed Thursday by the SEC, the agency said it was seeking to remove Musk from Tesla management altogether. Many investors have argued that keeping Musk as CEO is critical at such a time.

“I do not doubt the value of Musk to Tesla,” John Coffee, a Columbia University law professor and corporate governance expert, said. “Without him, they are just a struggling start up that is burning cash at a hopeless rate and is facing a debt refunding crisis in the near future.

“Musk is an iconic entrepreneur but he needs adult supervision,” Coffee added.

That’s where the new board members come in. The current board, which includes Musk’s brother, Kimbal Musk, is widely seen as subservient to Musk. They have publicly expressed support for many recent moves, such as his rejection last week of an early SEC settlement offer.

“The board is truly the alpha chapter of the Elon Musk fan club,” said Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

Teresa Goody, a former SEC attorney and founder of The Goody Group, a consulting firm, said that many startups begin with a powerful CEO who typically puts “friendlies” on the board.

As a company grows and becomes more sophisticated, Goody said, more independent directors are typically brought on board to provide better oversight.

“That’s happening a little later in the life cycle of the company in the case of Tesla,” she said.

Still, Elon Musk is different than many CEOs because he owns roughly 20 percent of the company’s stock. That gives him more influence.

“In a typical case, the CEO is a high-priced employee” of the board, Gordon said. “Musk will still be more powerful than the board chair.”

There will be other constraints on Musk’s behavior: As part of the SEC settlement, his tweets and other comments will have to be vetted by the company before they can be released to the public.

“This humiliation — that Elon can’t go outside unless he’s on a leash — that will bother him the most,” Gordon said. He called it an “extraordinary measure.”

Gordon thinks the SEC should have gone further and sought to add as many as four new board members and remove some old ones.

Still, Gordon said, “I think this experience has shown him that however smart he is, or however powerful he thinks he is, the government is also powerful too.”

Musk may want to keep a close eye on the new chairman, however. Musk himself was the chair of the board, after investing in the company, before firing the chief executive and taking over as CEO

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AP Auto Writer Tom Krisher contributed to this story from Detroit.

SKOPJE, Macedonia — A referendum on changing Macedonia’s name as part of a deal that would pave the way for NATO membership won overwhelming support Sunday, but low voter turnout highlighted the hurdles that still remain for the Balkan country to join the alliance.

Prime Minister Zoran Zaev had hoped for a strong show of support in the referendum on whether to accept a June deal with Greece changing the country’s name to North Macedonia. That would help him with the next step of winning parliamentary support for the required constitutional amendments.

Results from more than 97 percent of polling stations showed 91.3 percent of voters approving the deal. But turnout stood at just 36.8 percent, a far cry from the massive support the government had hoped for.

Opponents to the name change had called for a boycott of the vote and celebrated in the street outside Parliament when turnout figures were announced, chanting slogans and waving flags.

Nevertheless, Zaev declared the vote a success.

“The people made a great choice and said ‘yes’ to our future. It is time for lawmakers to follow the voice of the people and to provide support,” he said. “There will be no better agreement with Greece, nor an alternative for NATO and the EU.”

Zaev said he would seek to secure the required two-thirds majority of the 120-seat parliament by next week for the constitutional changes. If he fails, he said the only alternative would be to call early elections.

The deal with Greece has faced vociferous opposition from a sizeable portion of the population on both sides of the border, with detractors saying their respective governments conceded too much to the other side and damaged national interests and identity.

The referendum stirred strong interest in the West, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis among a long line of foreign officials who visited Skopje ahead of the vote to urge Macedonians to back the deal.

Russia, however, is not keen on NATO expanding in a part of Europe once under its sphere of influence. Mattis said there was “no doubt” Moscow had funded groups inside Macedonia to campaign against the name change.

In Athens, the Greek foreign ministry noted the “contradictory” result of the referendum – overwhelming approval along with low turnout – and said careful moves were needed to “preserve the positive potential of the deal.”

The agreement faces more hurdles before it can be finalized. If the constitutional amendments are approved by Macedonia’s parliament, Greece will then also need to ratify it.

But Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras faces political problems of his own. His governing coalition partner, right-wing Independent Greeks head Panos Kammenos, has vowed to vote against the deal, leaving Tsipras reliant on opposition parties and independent lawmakers to push it through.

The June agreement aims to resolve a dispute dating from Macedonia’s declaration of independence from Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. Greece, arguing its new northern neighbor’s name implied territorial ambitions on its own province of the same name, has blocked Macedonia’s efforts to join NATO since then.

Under the deal, the former Yugoslav republic would amend its name to North Macedonia and Greece would drop its objections to the country joining NATO.

Supporters, led by Zaev, had characterized Sunday’s vote as a linchpin of Macedonia’s future prosperity, the key to its ability to join international institutions. NATO and EU membership would be a major step for a country that less than two decades ago almost descended into civil war, when parts of its ethnic Albanian minority took up arms against the government, seeking greater rights.

But opponents painted Sunday’s vote as a clear failure.

“The fact is that the agreement with Greece did not receive a green light,” said Hristijan Mickoski, head of the opposition VMRO party. “This today is a defeat not only for the agreement with Greece, but for the crime of those who are in power.”

However, the government had called the referendum consultative and non-binding, meaning it could interpret the outcome as a fair reflection of public opinion regardless of how many people voted. If the referendum were binding, the Macedonian Constitution requires a minimum turnout of 50 percent of eligible voters to be valid.

The question posed to voters was: “Are you in favor of membership in NATO and European Union by accepting the deal between (the) Republic of Macedonia and Republic of Greece?”

Critics of the name change include President Gjorge Ivanov, who has called the agreement with Greece a “flagrant violation of sovereignty.”

Boycott supporters were jubilant.

“We don’t recognize any other Macedonia but Macedonia. No North Macedonia,” said Nevenka Ristovska, who was among opponents of the deal celebrating outside parliament, waving red-and-yellow Macedonian flags.

Story: Elena Becatoros, Konstantin Testorides