Tesla investor presses board address Elon Musk’s politics and their impact on the EV maker’s business

Jay Botira, 67, from Pennsylvania, presented a proposal for shareholders to the Board of Directors requesting Tesla to adopt a political neutral policy that would prevent executives and corporate leaders from making data, approvals, contributions, and other visual action in support or opposition to political parties or candidates. Potterra, retired entrepreneur, very excited about renewable energy and foundations of the Solutions Pipartisan Climate Solutions in 2016. He has also been an investor in Tesla since the company’s public subscription in 2010. Potira does not want to see “the daily human policy hinders this”.

Bottira’s ordeal as Malik Tesla and a supporter of the effect of prominent musk on politics repeatedly caused the retail manufacturer. His suggestion is the first time that Tesla Council has to respond directly to inquiries and comes at a time when Tesla faces increased pressure on sales and innovation amid a slowdown in consumer spending.

“Elon Musk is a technical genius and I think his enthusiasm and passion enabled him to do things that no one can do, so it is not surprising that his interest in politics is greater than life.” “This type of emotion, energy and enthusiasm led him to create Tesla and make Tesla do unless any other company was able to carry out a practical electrical transmission.”

But the same enthusiasm, which is directed at politics, endangers the world’s transition to sustainable energy, said Bottira, and Tesla investors.

He said: “We cannot do anything at any level in the company that alienates customers, turns government officials, or alienates the organizers, whether here or abroad.”

He said that Potira contacted the Council in October 2024 with a letter that defines his concerns and did not get a response, which surprised him because at that time he owns about 8 million dollars from Tesla shares. Bottira has since sold about half of the investment after sticking to it for 15 years because it was concerned about the impact of political activity on the company and I believe that Tesla was represented in his investment portfolio.

“It makes sense that if you make political data in one direction or another, you will harm someone.” luck. “For this reason, I am a great defender of neutrality for people who are in the eyes of the audience.”

His proposal is not mentioned by the CEO of Tesla by name, but Musk was barely neutral. He spent $ 250 million north in the super -supported PAC support to fill in support to President Donald Trump and was the face of the Ministry of Government efficiency (DOGE). The last was behind thousands of federal functional discounts and the reduction of millions in federal financing.

Tesla plate pushing back

The members of the Tesla Board, headed by Robyn Denholm, are seeking to delete the proposal, which means that it will not appear in the company’s final agent’s statement and Tesla shareholders will not be able to vote on it at the annual meeting in November.

The Tesla Council wrote that the proposed neutrality policy “will not only have a chilling effect on freedom of expression, but it can be impossible and illegal to the council to implement and implement it.”

The members of the Board of Directors said in an opposition statement: “This would put the board of directors in an unprecedented position to monitor and analyze an unlimited category of data made by the company’s managers and the association employees in their personal capabilities using non -deferred platforms.” “The painting does not have the ability to enforce it and should not be placed in a position that is constantly explained by these overwhelming, mysterious and changing standards.”

The Council recommended to investors to vote against the proposal, and its request to issue the entire proposal to the Securities and Exchange Committee is still pending.

Increasing interests from Tesla investors

While Bottira submitted the shareholders’ proposal as an individual investor in the company, he is barely alone. Retail investors carrying thousands of Tesla shares have been on questions every three months since 2024 asking about Musk’s participation in politics and the council to curb it.

“Illon, the person has freedom of expression. The brand’s ambassador is in Tesla,” wrote one of the investors before the last profit call in July. “What is the Board of Directors to remove Tesla from the special procedures of its CEO?”

Another investor wrote in April: “The boycott, protests, sabotage, negative headlines and the stock chip have arisen Elon Musk’s participation in changes to services and employment in the United States.” “Does Tesla Council discuss whether the CEO should have a full focus on Tesla and leave the government not for the elected politicians?”

Similar inquiries focused on musk on the platform used by Tesla to request questions from its army from retail investors before the quarterly profit calls in January 2024 and July 2024.

Consumers in the blue states cool on Tesla

In California with democratic tendencies, which MUSK left for Texas, the strike was deep in Tesla sales. Over the past seven quarters, the new records of Teslas have decreased in California, where the share of electric cars is excessively represented for the rest of the United States, according to data from Experian. The state’s share of electric car recordings is 28.6 %, and the market share is 19.5 %. In comparison, the American market share in vehicles is 7.8 %.

California records in Tellas decreased by 18 % during the first half of 2025, compared to the first half of 2024, according to quarterly numbers published in July by the New California Car Traders Association. Meanwhile, hybridization recordings increased by 54 % in California in the first half of the year. The Tesla Y and Model 3 remains the best two cars to sell in California, despite the decreases.

As of August 2025, California’s registered voters ‘share reached 45.3 %, while Republicans’ share reached 25.2 %, according to the California General Policy Institute.

A 2024 study by the Bath College at the Chicago Booth University founded a professor of economics that analyzed 117 events of the political position of major companies that when companies hold controversial positions, they get a response from consumers.

“Consumption Values”, written by Jacob Conway and Levi, found that when a quarter of consumers realize the company’s political position in a case, those that are in line with the situation increased their consumption by 19 % the following month. The study found that consumers who opposed the situation reduced their spending by 11 %.

William Cassidy, a professor of finance at the Oline College of Washington University, said that political data “is definitely very charged in the sense that there is now good academic evidence that taking positions certainly affects customers’ demand for your product.”

The research also found that the differences in consumption continued even a year after the company took a political position on the issue.

Bottira said that he has friends who will not buy sults because of the musk policy and they have others who sold them. As an investor and an advocate of climate change, he finds this trend to warn.

Before submitting his proposal, he searched for the Tesla Ethics Code, which requires employees to avoid conflict of interests “interferes, or it seems to interfere, with the interests of Tesla.” His proposal requests the Board of Directors to integrate the data that leaders see political activities as inconsistent with the interests of Tesla. He said that the proposal does not aim to criticize anyone, punish or embarrass anyone in the company.

“I just ask the board of directors to recognize the dangers of political activity, learn from its mistakes, make the necessary amendments in governance, and move forward towards the goal of Tesla, the advertiser of” accelerating the transition to sustainable energy. “” The success of Tesla in this task is important to the world – more important than the personal political opinions of any one person. I hope that the Tesla Council will have the same mentality. ”