Now that Elon Musk has wrapped up his high-profile advisory role in Washington, a group of Tesla’s institutional investors is pressing him to return his full attention to the company, which has seen sales plummet in key markets in recent months. The investors point to slowing electric vehicle sales and a slumping stock price as evidence that Tesla needs Musk back at the helm.
Yesterday (May 28), Tesla chair Robyn Denholm received a letter signed by 12 major pension funds that collectively hold significant stakes in the company. As first reported by the Financial Times, the letter calls on Musk to commit to working at least 40 hours per week at Tesla.
The signatories include New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, Oregon State Treasurer Elizabeth Steiner, the American Federation of Teachers, Denmark’s AkademikerPension, and the SOC Investment Group, which collaborates with labor union pension funds to back shareholder initiatives. SOC is the investment arm of the Strategic Organizing Center, a coalition of North American labor unions.
“The current crisis at Tesla puts into sharp focus the long-term problems at the company stemming from the CEO’s absence, which is amplified by a Board that appears largely uninterested and unwilling to act in the best interest of all Tesla shareholders by demanding Musk’s full-time attention on Tesla,” the letter said.
The investors’ letter arrives as Tesla’s board reportedly weighs a new compensation plan for Musk, after a Delaware court struck down his controversial $56 billion pay package in 2023. The pension funds argue that any new agreement should come with a condition that that Musk commit to working at least 40 hours a week at Tesla.
“Given Musk’s leadership roles at four private companies and his foundation, the Board must ensure that Tesla is not treated as just one among many competing obligations,” the letter said.
Aside from Tesla, he partially owns and runs at least five other companies, including SpaceX, X, The Boring Company, Neuralink and xAI.
Musk recently promised to refocus on Tesla and scale back his role as the head of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). “Back to spending 24/7 at work and sleeping in conference/server/factory rooms. I must be super focused on X/xAI and Tesla . . . as we have critical technologies rolling out,” he wrote on X earlier this month.
Musk is the largest shareholder of Tesla, owning about 13 percent of the company. Its other major shareholders include institutional funds such as Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street. Because Tesla is part of the S&P 500 index (since December 2020), many pension funds that invest in index funds also own shares in Tesla. The signatories of this week’s letter collectively hold about 0.25 percent of Tesla, worth roughly $3 billion.