Butera’s plight as a Tesla owner and supporter at odds with the impact of Musk’s high profile in politics has been raised repeatedly by the electric vehicle manufacturer’s legion of retail investors. His proposal is the first time the Tesla board has had to directly respond to the query and it comes as Tesla faces increasing pressure on sales and innovation amid a slowdown in consumer spending.
“Elon Musk is a technical genius and I believe his enthusiasm and passion have enabled him to do things that no one else could do, so it’s not surprising that his interest in politics was larger than life,” said Butera. “It’s that kind of passion and energy and enthusiasm that drove him to create Tesla and to make Tesla do what no other company has been able to do—create practical electric transportation.”
But that same zeal, directed at politics, is jeopardizing the world’s transition to sustainable energy, Butera said, and Tesla’s investors.
“We can’t afford to do anything at any level in the company that alienates customers, alienates government officials, or alienates regulators, whether it’s here or abroad,” he said.
Butera first reached out to the board in October 2024 with a letter outlining his concerns and never got a response, which surprised him because at the time he owned about $8 million worth of Tesla stock, he said. Butera has since sold off about half the investment after holding onto it for 15 years because he was concerned about the impact of political activity on the company and thought Tesla was overrepresented in his investment portfolio.
“It just stands to reason that if you make political statements in one direction or another, you’re going to offend somebody,” Butera told Fortune. “For that reason, I’m a big advocate of neutrality for people who are in the public eye.”
His proposal does not mention Tesla’s CEO by name, but Musk has hardly been neutral. He spent north of $250 million backing a super PAC he created to mobilize support for President Donald Trump and he was the face of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The latter was behind thousands of unpopular federal job cuts and slashed millions in federal funding.
The Tesla board wrote that the proposed neutrality policy “would not only have a chilling effect on free speech, but could also be both impossible and unlawful for the board to implement and enforce.”
“This would place the Board in an unworkable situation to constantly monitor and analyze an undefined category of statements made by the Company’s directors and high-ranking officers in their personal capacities using non-Company platforms,” board members said in an opposition statement. “The Board neither has the ability to enforce nor should it be placed in a position to be constantly interpreting these sweeping, nebulous and rapidly shifting standards.”
While Butera submitted the shareholder proposal in his capacity as an individual investor in the company, he is hardly alone. Retail investors holding thousands of Tesla shares have upvoted questions every quarter since 2024 asking about Musk’s involvement in politics and begging the board to rein him in.
A 2024 study authored by a University of Chicago Booth School of Business assistant professor of economics that analyzed 117 major corporate political stance events found that when companies take controversial positions perceived to be political, they get a response from consumers.
The research also found that the consumption differences persisted even a year after a firm took a political stance on an issue.
Butera said he has friends who won’t buy Teslas because of Musk’s politics and has others who have sold their Teslas. As an investor and climate-change advocate, he finds that trend alarming.
“I’m just asking the board to acknowledge the risks of political activity, to learn from its mistakes, make necessary adjustments in governance, and to move forward toward Tesla’s stated goal of ‘Accelerating the Transition to Sustainable Energy,’” said Butera. “Tesla’s success in this mission is important to the world—more important than the personal political opinions of any one person. I would hope that Tesla’s Board would have the same mindset.”
