Dutch civil service scheme ABP and construction sector fund Bpf Bouw have both sold their shares in Tesla. One of the reasons for the sale was the $56bn bonus that was awarded to chief executive officer Elon Musk last year.

ABP and Bpf Bouw both voted against Musk’s remuneration package last June. The construction sector fund declined to comment further on the sale, neither did it disclose the amount it had invested in the car maker.

Harmen van Wijnen, the president of €533bn ABP, wrote a blog post on ABP’s website last Friday, explaining the decision to part ways with its holding in Tesla, which was worth approximately $650m (€633m) at the moment of the sale, according to calculations from financial daily Het Financieele Dagblad.

One of the reasons to divest from Tesla was the $50bn bonus awarded to Musk last June, Van Wijnen said in his blog post. “We felt this amount was not in line with our rules for good governance,” he said.

A Dutch Tesla car charging

Source: iStock

A Dutch Tesla car charging. Tesla was the most sold car brand in the Netherlands in 2024

Misunderstandings

Van Wijnen felt compelled to explain the decision in the blog after the sale, which was made public last week, had sparked controversy, especially on social media.

Even Musk himself waded into the debate, posting on his own social media platform X: “So they lost half a billion dollars and failed their constituents,” after it was reported that ABP had missed several hundred millions of dollars in profits by selling the stock.

Tesla’s share price indeed doubled between September and November, as Musk was becoming ever closer to president-elect Donald Trump.

“Musk’s bromance with the incoming president has certainly been good for the stock’s performance in the last few months. But, I can’t say it often enough: pension funds never invest for a few months. Not even for a year. We are investing for the (very) long term,” Van Wijnen said.

ABP declined to say where it invested the proceeds from the sale of its Tesla shares. It’s therefore impossible to know the real opportunity cost of the divestment.

New investment policy

In his blog, Van Wijnen stressed the decision to sell Tesla was taken some time ago, and has nothing to do with the “extreme behaviour” exhibited by Musk more recently.

Moreover, Tesla’s sale coincides with the introduction of a new investment policy by ABP, which involves investing in fewer stocks.

“Hence, Tesla was not the only stock we parted with,” Van Wijnen said. For example, ABP also sold its shares in another automaker, France’s Renault.

In total, ABP is reducing its shares portfolio from 2,000 to 1,100 companies.

The other three of the ‘big five’ pension funds in the Netherlands (PME, PFZW and PMT) also voted against Musk’s bonus package last June. But they are holding on to their Tesla shares for now.

Technology industry fund PME does have concerns about governance at Tesla, however, because of Musk’s “excessively high” bonus, and is therefore “evaluating” its position in the company, a spokesperson told IPE. “But at the moment Tesla still passes our ESG selection,” he added.

ABP and Bpf Bouw are not the first Dutch pension funds to sell Tesla for ESG reasons. In mid-2023, pension fund Ahold Delhaize sold its Tesla shares because the company had fired employees for joining a trade union. The Dutch doctors’ fund Huisartsen has also excluded Tesla for that reason.

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