A person investor and longtime climate-change advocate is asking the Tesla board to lastly handle the affect of politics on the $1 trillion electrical car and robotics producer—by simply staying out of it.
Jay Butera, 67, of Pennsylvania, submitted a shareholder proposal to the board asking Tesla to undertake a coverage of political neutrality that might prohibit executives and firm leaders from making statements, endorsements, contributions and taking different seen actions in help or opposition to political events or candidates. Butera, a retired entrepreneur, is deeply obsessed with renewable vitality and based the bipartisan local weather options caucus in 2016. He’s additionally been an investor in Tesla because the firm’s IPO in 2010. In his view, Tesla’s mission of widespread electrical transportation and deployment of renewable vitality sources is of paramount significance. Butera doesn’t need to see “the day-to-day politics of mankind get in the way in which of that.”
Butera’s plight as a Tesla proprietor and supporter at odds with the affect of Musk’s excessive profile in politics has been raised repeatedly by the electrical car producer’s legion of retail traders. His proposal is the primary time the Tesla board has needed to immediately reply to the question and it comes as Tesla faces rising strain on gross sales and innovation amid a slowdown in shopper spending.
“Elon Musk is a technical genius and I imagine his enthusiasm and keenness have enabled him to do issues that nobody else may do, so it’s not shocking that his curiosity in politics was bigger than life,” mentioned Butera. “It’s that sort of ardour and vitality and enthusiasm that drove him to create Tesla and to make Tesla do what no different firm has been capable of do—create sensible electrical transportation.”
However that very same zeal, directed at politics, is jeopardizing the world’s transition to sustainable vitality, Butera mentioned, and Tesla’s traders.
“We are able to’t afford to do something at any stage within the firm that alienates clients, alienates authorities officers, or alienates regulators, whether or not it’s right here or overseas,” he mentioned.
Butera first reached out to the board in October 2024 with a letter outlining his considerations and by no means acquired a response, which stunned him as a result of on the time he owned about $8 million value of Tesla inventory, he mentioned. Butera has since bought off about half the funding after holding onto it for 15 years as a result of he was involved in regards to the affect of political exercise on the corporate and thought Tesla was overrepresented in his funding portfolio.
“It simply stands to purpose that in the event you make political statements in a single path or one other, you’re going to offend anyone,” Butera informed Fortune. “For that purpose, I’m a giant advocate of neutrality for people who find themselves within the public eye.”
His proposal doesn’t point out Tesla’s CEO by identify, however Musk has hardly been impartial. He spent north of $250 million backing an excellent PAC he created to mobilize help for President Donald Trump and he was the face of the Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE). The latter was behind hundreds of unpopular federal job cuts and slashed hundreds of thousands in federal funding.
Tesla board pushes again
Tesla board members, chaired by Robyn Denholm, are looking for to omit the proposal, which might imply it received’t seem on the corporate’s ultimate proxy assertion and Tesla shareholders received’t get to vote on it on the annual assembly in November.
The Tesla board wrote that the proposed neutrality coverage “wouldn’t solely have a chilling impact on free speech, however may be each unimaginable and illegal for the board to implement and implement.”
“This is able to place the Board in an unworkable state of affairs to consistently monitor and analyze an undefined class of statements made by the Firm’s administrators and high-ranking officers of their private capacities utilizing non-Firm platforms,” board members mentioned in an opposition assertion. “The Board neither has the power to implement nor ought to it’s positioned able to be consistently deciphering these sweeping, nebulous and quickly shifting requirements.”
The board beneficial traders vote towards the proposal, and its request to strike the proposal completely to the Securities & Trade Fee stays pending.
Rising considerations from Tesla traders
Whereas Butera submitted the shareholder proposal in his capability as a person investor within the firm, he’s hardly alone. Retail traders holding hundreds of Tesla shares have upvoted questions each quarter since 2024 asking about Musk’s involvement in politics and begging the board to rein him in.
“Elon the particular person has freedom of speech. The model ambassador of Tesla doesn’t,” wrote one investor earlier than the final earnings name in July. “What’s the board doing to distance Tesla from the non-public actions of its CEO?”
“Boycotts, protests, vandalism, adverse headlines, and a inventory slide have been sparked by Elon Musk’s participation in adjustments to U.S. gov’t providers & employment,” wrote one other investor in April. “Is the Tesla board discussing whether or not their CEO ought to focus absolutely on Tesla and go away gov’t to elected politicians?”
Related Musk-focused queries rolled into the platform Tesla makes use of to solicit questions from its military of retail traders upfront of quarterly earnings calls in January, October 2024, and July 2024.
Shoppers in blue states are cooling on Tesla
In closely Democratic-leaning California, which Musk has left in favor of Texas, the hit on Tesla gross sales has been deep. For the previous seven straight quarters, new registrations for Teslas have declined in California, the place the share of electrical autos is overly represented relative to remainder of the U.S., in keeping with knowledge from Experian. The state’s share of zero electrical car registrations is 28.6%, and the market share is nineteen.5%. As compared, the U.S. market share of the autos is 7.8%.
California registrations of Teslas dropped 18% throughout the first half of 2025, in comparison with the primary half of 2024, in keeping with quarterly figures revealed in July by the California New Automotive Sellers Affiliation. In the meantime, hybrid registrations elevated 54% in California the primary half of the yr. Tesla’s Mannequin Y and Mannequin 3 stay the highest 2 promoting automobiles in California, regardless of the declines.
As of August 2025, the share of registered voters in California was 45.3%, whereas the share of Republicans was 25.2%, in keeping with the Public Coverage Institute of California.
A 2024 examine authored by a College of Chicago Sales space College of Enterprise assistant professor of economics that analyzed 117 main company political stance occasions discovered that when firms take controversial positions perceived to be political, they get a response from customers.
“Consuming Values,” written by Jacob Conway and Levi Boxell, discovered that when 1 / 4 of customers are conscious of a agency’s political place on a problem, these aligned with the place elevated their consumption by 19% the next month. Shoppers against the stance decreased their spending by 11%, the examine discovered.
Making political statements is “actually very fraught within the sense that there’s now good educational proof that taking stances actually impacts buyer demand in your product,” mentioned William Cassidy, an assistant professor of finance at Washington College’s Olin Enterprise College.
The analysis additionally discovered that the consumption variations persevered even a yr after a agency took a political stance on a problem.
Butera mentioned he has associates who received’t purchase Teslas due to Musk’s politics and has others who’ve bought their Teslas. As an investor and climate-change advocate, he finds that pattern alarming.
Earlier than he submitted his proposal, he researched Tesla’s Code of Enterprise Ethics, which asks staff to keep away from conflicts of curiosity that “intervene, or seem to intervene, with Tesla’s pursuits.” His proposal asks the board to include statements that deem political actions by leaders as conflicting with Tesla’s pursuits. He mentioned the proposal isn’t meant to criticize, penalize, or embarrass anybody on the firm.
“I’m simply asking the board to acknowledge the dangers of political exercise, to be taught from its errors, make obligatory changes in governance, and to maneuver ahead towards Tesla’s acknowledged objective of ‘Accelerating the Transition to Sustainable Vitality,’” mentioned Butera. “Tesla’s success on this mission is vital to the world—extra vital than the non-public political views of anybody particular person. I might hope that Tesla’s Board would have the identical mindset.”
