NYC Comptroller Brad Lander Takes Aim at Elon Musk’s Political Ventures

New York City’s comptroller, whose office oversees five pension funds, is pursuing securities litigation against the Tesla board of directors over its alleged failure to provide oversight over Musk.

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who oversees the city’s $284.27 billion pension system, is taking aim at Tesla Inc.’s board of directors, urging the New York City Law Department to pursue securities litigation against the company. Lander proposed bringing the litigation on behalf of the city’s five pension funds, which have reported hundreds of millions of dollars in losses in their Tesla investments.

Shares of Tesla have fallen about 40% since their post-election peak in December 2024, a drop Lander said in a statement has resulted in a loss of more than $300 million for New York City’s five pension systems.

Lander, also a candidate for New York City mayor, said in a statement the board of Tesla has not provided oversight over CEO Elon Musk, who is currently serving as the head of President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency Service Temporary Organization. Lander said in the statement that Musk is distracted, spending little of his time at Tesla and promoting policies that hurt the company’s business.

“Ever since Elon Musk took over DOGE and became best-friend-in-chief with President [Donald] Trump, Tesla—where Musk is supposed to be CEO—has suffered financially, causing enormous losses for Tesla shareholders,” Lander said in a statement. “We have long expressed concerns that the Tesla board has failed to provide independent oversight, or to require that Musk—or someone else—serve as a full-time CEO. Now, it appears that material misstatements from Tesla misled investors about his role at the company. That’s why I’m calling on the Law Department to file securities litigation: because Elon Musk is so distracted that he’s driving Tesla off a financial cliff and taking down shareholder value with it.”

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It is not Lander’s first scuffle with Musk. In May 2024, he called on Tesla shareholders to reject a proposed $56 billion pay package for Musk and to reject the reappointment of Musk’s brother, Kimbal, to the Tesla board of directors.

“Shareholder litigation could force the changes in governance and leadership that Tesla needs, and help recover some of our pension systems’ losses,” Lander said in this week’s statement. “Otherwise, we may need to consider divestment.”

Danish pension fund AkademikerPension announced in March that it will blacklist and divest the vast majority of its Tesla holdings unless changes are approved at a June shareholder meeting. PensionDanmark, in 2023, put Tesla on its exclusion list over the company’s dispute with a Swedish labor union.

The five New York City public pension systems—the New York City Employees’ Retirement System, the Teachers’ Retirement System of the City of New York, the New York City Police Pension Fund, the New York City Fire Pension Fund and the New York City Board of Education Retirement System—own a collective 3 million shares of Tesla.

These shares were worth $1.26 billion on December 31, 2024, according to a statement from Lander’s office. As of March 28, the value of the New York City pension systems’ Tesla holdings had fallen to $831 million.