Some Big Apple Dems are so furious over Elon Musk and DOGE that they’re vowing to try to divest city pensions from his lucrative, environmentally friendly company Tesla.
Brooklyn city Councilman Justin Brannan is making divestment from Tesla a key plank in his bid to become the next city comptroller and is even fundraising off the pledge.
City pensions, managed by the comptroller’s office, currently have about $1.2 billion invested in Tesla.
“Elon Musk is deadly for democracy, and his companies are corrosive for our portfolio,” Brannan said Tuesday.
“Musk is an unelected oligarch with way too much power – and he’s using it to screw over everyday New Yorkers. He’s gutting the Social Security Administration, cutting critical funding for New York City, and now he’s leveraging his vast wealth and status as one of President Trump’s biggest donors,” Brannan raged.
The pol and other Dems have turned on Musk — once the darling of the left for making emission-free EV cars run by batteries instead of gas-fueled, carbon-spewing vehicles — for backing President Trump and spearheading cuts and waste in the federal government through the controversial Department of Government Efficiency.
Brannan said Musk’s actions threaten the city and economic stability and are “particularly bad for the retirees that our pension system is supposed to protect.
“This is simply not someone the City of New York should be doing business with,” he said.
He went further in a campaign fundraising pitch.
“Your hard-earned pension dollars should not be subject to the whims of a power-mad unelected oligarch, especially when it’s not even good for your wallets. Tesla’s stock is extremely volatile and is already underperforming,” Brannan said.
But state Conservative Party Chairman Jerry Kassar said such Democrats look like phonies.
“It is ironic that Tesla would find itself at the end of the Democrats’ sword, the people who’ve preached the cause of clean energy,” Kassar said.
“Of course, it’s pandering.”
Until recently, people including workers and retirees whose pension funds are invested in Tesla have made a killing.
The total return for Tesla (TSLA) stock is 61.26% over the past 12 months.
So far, it’s down 31.06% this year. But the 5-year total return is 726.90%.
In other words, $100 invested in TSLA stock 5 years ago would be worth $826.90 today, according to financecharts.com.
Each of the city’s five pension funds for government workers has a board of trustees, so while the comptroller manages the portfolios, he cannot unilaterally divest shares from a company.
But Tesla has struggled more recently.
Sales of Tesla cars dropped 1.1% last year, the first decline in a dozen years.
More troubling, European sales of Tesla vehicles tumbled 49% in the first two months of the year compared with a year earlier, even as overall sales of EVs grew, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.
Current city Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander said Tuesday, “We have had our eyes on Tesla for a long time.”
He griped that even when Tesla’s stock was rising, he was concerned the company’s board lacked independence.
“So we registered those concerns over the past several years. We’ve engaged with others in proxy voting, pushed for a more independent board…. What’s going on currently definitely amplifies those concerns. We are considering all of our options,” Lander said, adding, “We’ll have more to say.”
Brannan’s Democratic primary opponent Mark Levine declined to comment.
State Republican Party chairman Ed Cox said the Democrats’ push to divest from Tesla exposes what they’re really about — government power and control, not real environmentalism.
“Tesla is one of the great EV manufacturers. They’re attacking an environmentally friendly car company,” Cox said.
“It’s not about environmentalism. It’s about power and control,” he said.
A Brannan campaign spokesman responded, “”Justin is confident we can find plenty of green investments in companies that haven’t lost almost half their value in the past 3 months and without oligarch, MAGA CEOs targeting the City’s money, Social Security and Medicare.”
