Tesla is no longer included in the S&P 500 ESG (Environment, Social, and Governance) index, which could impact the company’s stock price. The move has led to several angry tweets from the company’s CEO, Elon Musk.
The decision to remove Tesla from the S&P 500 ESG was taken as a result of it being found guilty of racial discrimination and, surprisingly, its environmental record – or lack thereof. Margeret Dorn, the senior director and head of ESG indices for S&P Dow Jones, said that the organization couldn’t simply take the company’s word that it was taking steps to improve the world.
“You can’t just take a company’s mission statement at face value, you have to look at their practices across all those key dimensions,” she said. “While Tesla may be playing its part in taking fuel-powered cars off the road, it has fallen behind its peers when examined through a wider ESG lens.”
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Exxon is rated top ten best in world for environment, social & governance (ESG) by S&P 500, while Tesla didn’t make the list!
ESG is a scam. It has been weaponized by phony social justice warriors.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 18, 2022
The S&P 500 ESG is an index that seeks to measure the performance of securities meeting sustainability and social criteria. ESGs are not part of mandatory financial reporting but many companies are making disclosures in sustainability reports, something Tesla has not done. Indeed, that was noted as point against the automaker.
“For any element of an ESG score, whether it’s the E, S, or G, disclosure is hugely important,” Ray McConville, an S&P spokesman, told Barron’s. “If there isn’t a lot of information available, whether it’s publicly available information or information provided in our Corporate Sustainability Assessment survey, then that would negatively impact a score. So in the case of Tesla and others, the issue is partly a lack of disclosure.”
Elon Musk Calls ESG ‘An Outrageous Scam’
Musk, meanwhile, tweeted that the oil company Exxon is listed on the S&P 500 ESG, while Tesla is not, which is true. He also called it an “outrageous scam” adding that political attacks on him would “escalate dramatically in coming months.”
Dorn, however, wrote that an analysis looking to find risks to Tesla stemming from controversial incidents identified “two separate events centered around claims of racial discrimination and poor working conditions at Tesla’s Fremont factory, as well as its handling of the NHTSA investigation after multiple deaths and injuries were linked to its autopilot,” Bloomberg reports.
Tesla’s exclusion from this list may have a modest impact on its stock price. The index, however, has a relatively small footprint in the asset-management world. Although the company’s shares were down 5.5 percent in midday trading, that may simply have been due to the wider market also being weak.
Political attacks on me will escalate dramatically in coming months
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 18, 2022