- The 1.8 million-member American Federation of Teachers is taking on Elon Musk and demanding a review of Tesla’s valuation by the company’s six largest institutional investors. In an effort to safeguard its members’ retirement assets, AFT head Randi Weingarten reached out to Blackrock CEO Larry Fink among others because Tesla’s latest financial disclosures “should raise alarms,” she wrote in a letter. Weingarten cited sales slips in Europe and California and heightened competition in the EV market.
The American Federation of Teachers, one of the country’s largest labor unions, is tightening the screws on Tesla CEO Elon Musk by reaching out to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, among other asset-manager chiefs, and calling for a review of Tesla’s valuation, DealBook first reported.
AFT leader Randi Weingarten claims that Tesla is overvalued amid a sales slump, and she is worried about retirement savings that could be pummeled by a sell-off. In addition to Fink, Weingarten reached out to CEOs such as Fidelity Investments’ Abigail Johnson, State Street’s Ronald O’Hanley, TIAA’s Thasunda Brown Duckett, and Vanguard’s Salim Ramji—while copying Musk and the entire Tesla board on the message.
“Tesla’s latest financial disclosures should raise alarms,” the letter states. Weingarten wrote the goal in reaching out to the largest six is to focus on “safeguarding workers’ retirements.”
Weingarten noted she’s taking initiative for the organization's 1.8 million members that hold roughly $4 trillion in retirement assets through pension funds, other investment vehicles, and individual accounts. She wrote that if Tesla’s stock price were to drop to the $135 target that some analysts have forecast, the loss would be a material hit to the pensions funding retired teachers’ savings.
“Just this week we saw Tesla stock continue to sink faster than a Cybertruck in quicksand as European sales fell off a cliff,” she said. “So, we knew we needed to act fast.”
In addition to Europe’s 45% year-on-year decline, according to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association, Weingarten noted, California sales have dropped.
California, the largest market in the U.S. by a large margin, fell nearly 8% in the fourth quarter and nearly 12% from the year, according to the California New Car Dealers Association.
Tesla’s market price dipped 28% over the past month, slumping to $290 per share. The AFT suggested that Tesla is losing its pricing power after quarterly earnings and profit margins flopped.
To boot, Tesla’s brand has been bruised in the past few months, the letter states. EV consumers view Musk negatively, and the letter points out that Tesla’s net favorability is at an all-time low of 3% compared to 9% in January 2024.
This all came after Tesla shareholders approved Musk’s $56 billion pay package for a second time, Weingarten wrote. He followed up that win by joining the Trump administration, she added, even though Tesla board chair Robyn Denholm told investors the vote was about “retaining Elon’s attention and motivating him to focus on achieving astonishing growth for our company.”
