Tesla and the Case of the Dueling Financial Officers

By: Natalia Renta

In the wake of last weekend’s Tesla Takedown’s day of action at hundreds of dealerships across the country, financial officers on both sides of the political aisle weighed in on how to address Tesla’s tanking share price. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander called for accountability from Elon Musk and Tesla’s board of directors; 26 Republican state financial officers seemingly sought to blame and intimidate the many concerned citizens exercising their First Amendment rights. 

Musk’s attempts to slash government agencies including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau through DOGE has triggered public outrage. Countless people have shown up with witty signs at hundreds of Tesla dealerships to peacefully express their displeasure at an unelected billionaire exercising unlawful power across the federal government. The reputational damage Musk has inflicted on Tesla through his destructive, undemocratic actions has resulted in plummeting car sales and Tesla shares losing nearly 40 percent of their value in less than three months.

State financial officers, as stewards of public pension funds, weighed in on this controversy. Pension funds hold many types of investments, including in index funds that are invested across the stock market — including in Tesla shares.

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander called on the New York City Law Department to pursue litigation against Tesla on behalf of the city’s pensions. Lander pointed out that Musk has been spending his time as the head of DOGE promoting policies harmful to Tesla instead of serving as the full-time CEO of the company and that the board of directors has repeatedly failed to provide independent oversight. Musk seems to be spending all his time on the DOGE effort, sleeping in the Eisenhower Office Building and clocking 120-hour weeks, apparently contradicting company statements about him spending significant time with Tesla. 

This is not the first time Lander has expressed concerns about Tesla’s governance. Just last year, he called on Tesla shareholders to vote against Musk’s outrageous pay package and the renomination of two board members, including Musk’s brother. 

State financial officers on the other side of the aisle took a different approach: placing the blame for Tesla’s predicament on citizens exercising their First Amendment rights instead of on Musk’s actions. In a chilling letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, the officers seemingly attempt to conflate isolated incidents of vandalism with the widespread, peaceful protests that explicitly “oppose violence, vandalism and destruction of property” — all in the name of “public school teachers, first responders, and police officers” invested in Tesla. They commend the administration’s creation of an FBI taskforce to go after “domestic terrorists” targeting Tesla and call on elected officials to use that incendiary terminology.

Attorney General Bondi herself has also seemingly encouraged the conflation of unlawful vandalism with peaceful protests, saying: “If you’re going to touch a Tesla, go to a dealership, do anything, you better watch out because we’re coming after you.” 

This approach is extremely dangerous: it threatens our rights in an attempt to protect unelected billionaires wreaking havoc. If state financial officers truly care about the workers whose money they steward, they should follow the lead of Lander and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. The union leader has just called on BlackRock and other large asset managers — some of Tesla’s largest shareholders and managers of many pensioners’ money — and 75 state and city chief fiduciary officers who oversee most major public pensions to take steps to protect pension beneficiaries from  Tesla’s plummeting share price.

It is Musk and Tesla’s board that need to be held accountable, not everyday citizens peacefully expressing their views.