Danish pension company Akademikir Pension has announced it will divest from Tesla due to ongoing concerns about labour rights, corporate governance, and Tesla CEO and co-founder, Elon Musk's behaviour.

Akademkir Pension CEO, Jens Munch Holst, said: "It's no secret that Tesla has been a market leader in the green transition for years. But when we can tick off a wide range of problems year after year without any prospect of any improvement – in fact, quite the opposite – it is difficult to argue that we should remain invested.”

The company has said there are three reasons why it has decided to exclude Tesla from its portfolio.

The first is that it said Tesla has been working against employee labour rights for years and has a long history of anti-union and workplace discrimination.

The second reason was that in its view, Tesla has “major” challenges regarding independence on the board and is unconditionally the mega-cap stock with the least independence on the board, which it said, “literally consists of friends and family”.

The third reason was that Musk has “increasingly interfered” in American and European politics.

“It's impossible to talk about Tesla without talking about Musk. He is the definition of Tesla. He has publicly supported controversial political figures, spread misinformation, and criticized governments,” Munch Holst said.

“This has created major return risks, as many investors and customers have turned their backs on the company. In short, Musk is, in our belief, in the process of destroying the brand and value.”

However, Munch Holst noted there is a theoretical possibility that the exclusion will be cancelled as Tesla's board of directors will have one “very last chance” to show that it is prepared to listen and change course.

“This will take place at the company's annual general meeting in June, where Akademiker Pension has presented a shareholder proposal regarding the employees' right to form and become members of trade unions,” he explained.

“And the case is clear: If the proposal is voted down, we exclude the company. We do not have great expectations that the proposal will be voted through, so the exclusion is ready in the drawer, but the board of Tesla will have just one last opportunity to change our position.”

Munch Holst said that Akademiker Pension is a “big advocate” of active ownership and has been trying for years to get Tesla to make some of the changes that we deem necessary but said sometimes there is no prospect of the desired change and “that's the situation with Tesla”.

The exclusion means that Akademiker Pension will sell the remaining 200 Tesla shares and put the company on its exclusion list, meaning that neither the company nor its managers are allowed to buy Tesla shares until the exclusion is lifted.

"I hope that at some point we can invest in the company again. That's how I feel about all the companies we've excluded,” Munch Holst said.

“But it requires some fundamental and structural changes, which I am not immediately optimistic will take place in the near future.”


European Pensions has contacted Tesla but it is yet to respond.

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