The largest European pension fund is throwing all Tesla shares out of its portfolio

• Tesla shares benefit from Trump victory
• Shareholder dispute over billion-dollar compensation for Tesla boss Elon Musk
• Dutch pension fund throws all Tesla shares out of its portfolio

Tesla shares have gained more than 93 percent in the last three months. The background to this price explosion was Donald Trump’s election victory as US President of the USA. The fact that the Tesla share was driven so strongly by this is due to the closeness of Tesla boss Elon Musk to Trump. Musk publicly supported the new US President during the election campaign and is even expected to become part of the government in the Trump administration in the future and participate in the newly created Ministry for Government Efficiency. Shareholders also hope that Tesla will be able to benefit from faster approvals, for example for autonomous driving.

Dispute over billion-dollar compensation for Tesla boss Elon Musk

Nevertheless, the person of Elon Musk does not remain uncontroversial even among Tesla shareholders. This is not least due to his billion-dollar salary. There is a dispute over Musk’s compensation package, which was agreed in 2018 and linked to the achievement of certain company goals. This originally comprised the sum of 2.6 billion US dollars, but due to the price explosion of Tesla shares and the achievement of various pre-defined milestones, it is now worth 56 billion US dollars.

Tesla shareholder Richard Tornetta sued against the compensation on the grounds that the goals to be achieved were too easy. In January 2024, a judge in Delaware declared the package invalid due to its sheer size. Musk appealed the ruling and let Tesla shareholders vote on his compensation plan again. Tesla shareholders also approved the plan in the new vote. However, this had no impact on the court proceedings. Musk recently suffered another setback in court: judge Kathaleen McCormick ruled that the company leader was not entitled to billions in remuneration. In response to the verdict, Musk announced via X that an appeal would be lodged.

Europe’s largest pension fund is pulling the ripcord

But the dispute over Musk’s billion-dollar remuneration was not without consequences elsewhere. The largest pension fund in Europe, the Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP from the Netherlands, decided to withdraw completely as a shareholder in Tesla in response to the billion-dollar compensation package. In the third quarter of 2024, ABP threw its 2.8 million Tesla shares worth $585 million out of its portfolio. This only recently became known after the Dutch newspaper “Het Financieele Dagblad” reported on it. As part of the second vote on Musk’s compensation package in June 2024, ABP voted against it and, according to n-tv, called the compensation “controversial and exceptionally high” and finally pulled the ripcord after they were outvoted.

When asked, the pension fund told the Dutch newspaper “NL Times” that the decision was not politically motivated, as n-tv writes. The reason given was that one “cannot and must not invest in everything”. However, ABP also referred to concerns about working conditions at Tesla, but did not elaborate on what they actually meant.

According to Thousand Investors, ABP is one of the largest pension funds in the world with assets under management of over 570 billion euros, the equivalent of around 587 billion US dollars. It was founded in 1922 in the Dutch city of Heerlen and is used to provide pensions for government and education sector employees. The fund’s goal is an annual average return of 4.5 percent.

Editorial team finanzen.net

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