Greetings from London. Have been on the run the past couple days, but between meetings did manage to listen to a brilliant Gideon Rachman podcast which unpacks both sides of the Ukrainian war.
For the first time I was able to understand Putin’s rationale for describing the Ukrainians as degenerate Neo Nazis. Have a listen. Am sure you’ll be just as fascinated as I was. Here’s the link: https://on.ft.com/3Ms5rnm
More for you to read today:
- Global Stocks Fall After U.S. Selloff; Futures Edge Down. Tencent leads pullback in Chinese tech stocks in Hong Kong.
- Tencent Posts Steepest Profit Decline Since Going Public. Company’s domestic videogame business struggles after Chinese regulations restricted minors’ online gaming time.
- The Next Emerging-Market Crisis? Developing economies face a perilous return to monetary normal.
- The Disinformation Governance Board, Disavowed. Homeland Security pauses a speech board that sparked public mistrust. (see video below).
Elon Musk launches offensive “outrageous ESG scam” after Tesla removed from index
Tesla CEO says S&P has ‘lost their integrity’; S&P cites Tesla’s carbon strategy, working conditions and claims of racial discrimination for removal
By Allison Prang of The Wall Street Journal
Tesla Inc. was recently dropped from an equity index that tracks environmental, social and governance principles.
Elon Musk isn’t pleased.
In a slew of tweets, Mr. Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, called ESG “an outrageous scam,” lamented that Exxon Mobil Corp remained in the index and claimed the company behind the move has “lost their integrity.”
“Exxon is rated top ten best in world for environment, social & governance (ESG) by S&P 500, while Tesla didn’t make the list!” Mr. Musk, the world’s richest person, said on Twitter.
“ESG is a scam,” he added. “It has been weaponized by phony social justice warriors.”
Exxon wasn’t immediately available to comment.
The tweets come after S&P Dow Jones Indices recently removed the electric-vehicle maker and several other companies from its ESG index as part of its yearly rebalancing. In an explanation of the move, the index operator said Tesla lagged its peers for a variety of reasons including its carbon strategy, working conditions and handling of a regulatory investigation.
“While Tesla may be playing its part in taking fuel-powered cars off the road, it has fallen behind its peers when examined through a wider ESG lens,” S&P said in a blog post detailing the index changes.
An S&P spokesman didn’t comment on Mr. Musk specifically. “We would simply reiterate the explanation laid out” that detailed changes to the index, the spokesman said.
S&P Dow Jones Indices is a joint venture between S&P Global Inc. and CME Group Inc. Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, is not a stakeholder in the venture.
ESG investing has grown in popularity in recent years as investors look to put their money into more socially conscious companies. At the end of 2021, assets in ESG funds hit $2.74 trillion, Morningstar said. The popular three-letter acronym is a category that encompasses how companies perform in areas like diversity, their impact on the environment and more.
Mr. Musk, who has agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion but has recently indicated the deal is “on hold,” said he thinks “political attacks on me will escalate dramatically in coming months.”
In a separate tweet he added that Tesla does “more for the environment than any company ever!” The comment included a meme that shows a person asking what an ESG score is, and another responding saying “it determines how compliant your business is with the leftist agenda.”
Mr. Musk followed that tweet with one saying he now plans to vote Republican after voting for Democrats in the past.
Tesla was the largest company left out of the ESG index when measured by its weighting in the S&P 500. Other companies bumped from the index include Johnson & Johnson and Meta Platforms Inc.
For Tesla specifically, S&P said its lack of a low carbon strategy, claims of racial discrimination, poor working conditions at its Fremont factory and the handling of an investigation by regulators related to injuries and deaths tied to its vehicles.
The changes to the index were effective May 2, according to S&P.
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