SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
pensions
Why Ours Became the First US Pension Fund to Cease New Tesla Stock Purchases
Tesla no longer behaves like a company focused on innovation, customer loyalty, or product integrity. It behaves like a company driven by ego.
May 08, 2025
As the controller of Lehigh County and a pension board member, I am entrusted with safeguarding public workers' retirement savings—people who fix our roads, teach our children, and keep our community running. This duty requires more than spreadsheets. It demands foresight, integrity, and courage when risks outweigh rewards. Public pensions are not just private retirements—they are public trusts. Every dollar mismanaged today becomes a broken promise tomorrow.
That's why I introduced a resolution, which our board passed, to halt new Tesla stock purchases in our actively managed funds.
Tesla's earnings have collapsed by 71% compared to last year. Auto revenues are down 20%. Sales in Germany plummeted 76% in February. Tesla lost 49% of its market share in China while BYD gained 161%. General Motors, once dismissed as outdated, now leads domestic electric Vehicle sales with a 50% increase in 2024. Its price-to-earnings ratio, how much investors pay for every dollar the company earns, is wildly inflated compared to industry norms. That kind of mismatch isn't a vote of confidence; it's a flashing warning light.
Public pension boards have long been treated as silent partners in the economy. But silence is no longer neutral. We are shareholders in the future, and that gives us responsibility.
But the numbers tell only part of the story. Tesla is bleeding trust.
The company's CEO, Elon Musk, has made himself a spectacle. He dismantled Twitter's identity on a whim, and now, by becoming a symbol of political division, he's destabilizing one of America's most recognizable brands. The consequences are already here: public walkouts, showroom protests, declining global sales.
For those of us managing public money, those signs matter. Tesla no longer behaves like a company focused on innovation, customer loyalty, or product integrity. It behaves like a company driven by ego. That is not a foundation we can trust with our employees' retirements.
This is why we voted to pause. We also requested that our investment consultant provide a complete accounting of our exposure.
We are not alone in this concern. Dutch and Danish pension funds have already divested. Canada's largest public-sector union has called for action. In the U.S., state treasurers and union leaders are beginning to raise similar alarms. Momentum is building, and it's grounded in a simple reality: Fiduciary responsibility must be insulated from erratic leadership.
Tesla has spent years fighting off unions, firing organizers, intimidating workers, and refusing to sign collective bargaining agreements. But now, the stability it has rejected might be the only thing that can restore what it has lost. Unions don't just raise wages, they stabilize companies. They create guardrails that protect against reckless leadership and ensure that decision-makers are accountable not just to shareholders, but to the people who build the product. A unionized workforce would offer not just internal structure, but public credibility. When workers have power, companies are held to account.
I urge public pension funds nationwide, especially those shaped by organized labor, including the United Auto Workers, to look hard at their Tesla holdings. These funds represent the collective strength of working people. They should not underwrite volatility, reward self-interest, or ignore risk. Coordinated action by labor-aligned funds can do more than shift portfolios; it can send a clear message to the market: Long-term value isn't earned through celebrity or chaos, but through companies that treat their workers, customers, and shareholders like they matter.
There is a connection between morality and capitalism. Profit built on spectacle crumbles quickly. But profit built on trust, stability, and accountability, that endures. That's the kind of return our retirees deserve.
Public pension boards have long been treated as silent partners in the economy. But silence is no longer neutral. We are shareholders in the future, and that gives us responsibility. We can't build a just economy while funding its collapse. If our dollars prop up instability, then silence is complicity.
Keep ReadingShow Less
ExxonMobil Plans to Keep an Entire Generation on the Hook for Its Climate Destruction
Public pensions must exit Exxon to protect workers' savings and retirement.
Nov 22, 2024
It is no secret that ExxonMobil poses some of the most powerful opposition to climate action at every level of government. Environmentalists have long pointed out that Exxon Knew about climate change, and instead of pivoting their business model to a more sustainable energy future, buried the evidence and began a decades-long disinformation campaign.
Leaders across the country have wisened up to the oil major's dirty politics, which is why the House Oversight Committee has been investigating Exxon and its peers, and state attorneys general have sued the company for damages. Most recently, California AG Rob Bonta, alongside environmental organizations like the Sierra Club, sued the company for lying to the public about the recyclability of plastics.
If the tide is turning against Exxon, why haven't investors caught on?
Unrestricted funding for companies engaged in fossil fuel expansion threatens workers' right to dignified retirement safety, a right that unions have fought hard to win.
ExxonMobil sparked headlines and investor outrage this spring when the company sued its own shareholders over a climate-related shareholder resolution. Public pensions representing trillions in worker savings across the country pushed back and mounted a vote-no effort against CEO Darren Woods and Director Joseph Hooley, but Wall Street asset managers watered down their efforts instead offering unwavering support of Exxon.
To add insult to injury, Woods made an appearance at the Council of Institutional Investors—a nonprofit dedicated to advocating for the investor rights of public, union, and private employee benefit funds—in September. There, he promised to continue to crack down on "extreme" investors who are concerned that the company's business model has loaded the economy with systemic financial risks and instability. Never mind that such a definition of extreme would describe many of the institutions present, which represent over 15 million workers and $5 trillion in assets under management.
But perhaps most indicative of ExxonMobil's commitment to business-as-usual pollution is the bonds they've issued this fall, with a maturity date of 2074.
These long-dated bonds represent unrestricted funds for ExxonMobil to continue to pursue fossil fuel expansion and plastic pollution well past most of the world's—and investors'—Net Zero by 2050 goals. This is an especially risky gamble for investors with long-term obligations, including public pension funds that manage millions of workers' retirement savings.
Not only is the future of oil and gas uncertain, but prolonged pollution wrought by disinformation and investor cash increases economy-wide systemic risks. Investors—and the everyday people who rely on institutions to manage their savings—will be left holding the purse strings as climate change wreaks havoc. Moreover, bond ownership does not come with the shareholder rights investors hope to use to influence company behavior. This gives Exxon complete freedom to use the funds however it wishes, even if that's out of alignment with investor interests.
This increasing risk is why we joined California Common Good and pension beneficiaries to testify during a recent CalPERS Board meeting to ask CalPERS to issue a moratorium on purchasing Exxon bonds.
The Sierra Club represents millions of members, many of whom are saving for retirement in the face of an uncertain future and working tirelessly to protect the communities and places they love. Whether relying on a public pension plan or a private asset manager, our members rely on investment professionals to keep their futures in mind. Unrestricted funding for companies engaged in fossil fuel expansion threatens workers' right to dignified retirement safety, a right that unions have fought hard to win. That's why we call on investors, particularly public pension funds, to refuse to participate in Exxon's bond issuances.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Bernie Sanders Calls for Major Overhaul to Solve US Retirement Crisis
"If Congress can bail out the crooks on Wall Street," said the senator, "please do not tell me that Congress can't support a secure retirement for working Americans."
Mar 04, 2024
Days after hearing the testimony of a fourth-generation autoworker whose family has experienced first-hand the shredding of the social contract over the course of several decades, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders demanded on Monday that Congress swiftly pass legislation to cut the "unacceptable" rate of poverty among senior citizens and ensure that American workers can once again "retire with the dignity and the respect that they deserve."
In an op-ed for Fox News, Vermont independent senator wrote about the hearing he held last week as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee about the country's retirement crisis.
The committee heard from Sara Schambers, whose grandfather retired at 55 from his job as an autoworker at Ford Motor Company, receiving "a pension and good healthcare" provided by the company where he'd worked for three decades.
Schambers' grandmother had to retire early due to a diagnosis of Lou Gehrig's disease, "but she didn’t have to choose between paying her medical bills and buying dinner for her family, because her job provided her with the retirement security she needed."
In sharp contrast, Schambers told Sanders and the rest of the committee that she will not have healthcare or a pension when she retires from her job as an autoworker.
"For generations, getting a job at Ford meant stability and security," said Schambers. "It meant being able to plan for yourself and your children. It meant being able to buy a house and see a future for yourself. But for those of us who were hired in after the financial crisis, that has not been our truth."
Schambers said auto companies have been "adamant that they couldn't afford to add to our pension liability... and that giving back our pensions could affect their stock prices and possibly lead to lower credit ratings. Nowadays, a stock price is more important than 150,000 autoworkers."
In his op-ed, Sanders wrote that the loss of pension and fixed benefit plans among American workers—60% of whom had them in the early 1980s, compared to just 4% in 2023—has led to a 23% poverty rate among senior citizens, one of the highest rates compared to other wealthy countries, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
"In Denmark, only 3% of seniors live in poverty," wrote Sanders. "In France, the senior poverty rate is 4.4%. In Germany, it's 9.1%. In Canada, it's 12.3%. In the United Kingdom, it's 15.5%."
Sanders called on Congress to pass the Social Security Expansion Act, which he introduced last year with nine other senators, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Tina Smith (D-Minn.).
The bill would make Social Security solvent for the next 75 years and expand the programs benefits for seniors and people with disabilities by $2,400 a year, making a difference to the 1-in-4 senior citizens who now live on less than $15,000 per year and 1-in-2 who live on less than $30,000 per year, as the Senate HELP Committee noted in a report ahead of the hearing last week.
In keeping with Sanders' longtime push to require the wealthy to pay their fair share into the program, the Social Security Expansion Act would apply the Social Security payroll tax to all income, including those from capital gains and dividends, for those who make more than $250,000 per year.
Currently, the senator wrote, the wealthiest Americans benefit from a cap on the Social Security payroll tax.
"Absurdly and unfairly, a billionaire pays the same amount of money into Social Security as someone who makes $168,700 a year," wrote Sanders. "That means, if you make up to $168,700 a year, you pay 6.2% of your income in Social Security taxes. But if you make 10 times more—$1,687,000—you pay just 0.62% of your income in Social Security taxes."
"That may make sense to someone," he added. It doesn't make sense to me."
In an interview with CNN over the weekend, Sanders was asked about a Republican proposal to raise the retirement age instead of properly funding Social Security by taxing the rich.
"Brilliant idea," said the senator sarcastically. "Yes, we've got our people, 87-year-olds packing groceries in a supermarket. You know, really? People have worked hard their whole lives, this is the richest country in the history of the world. Raise the retirement age, cut benefits? I don't think so."
Sanders proposed that every corporation in America should be required to either provide their employees with a retirement plan or "give workers the option of contributing to a federal pension plan similar to what members of Congress and federal employees receive."
"If Congress can provide trillions of dollars in tax breaks to billionaires and large corporations," said the senator, "if Congress can bail out the crooks on Wall Street who caused millions of Americans to lose their jobs, homes, and life savings back in 2008, please do not tell me that Congress can't support a secure retirement for working Americans."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular