An anti-DEI investment firm postponed its Tesla ETF, saying Elon Musk has 'gone too far' by launching a political party
James Fishback, CEO of investment firm Azoria, said on Sunday that the firm — which has stated its opposition to DEI targets and "woke" companies — will postpone its planned public listing of a Tesla ETF, which would invest in the EV giant's shares and options.
The firm planned to launch the ETF in the coming days. It would have allowed investors to bet on Tesla while using leverage to potentially gain bigger returns than investing in the company's stock directly. While ETFs are generally used to spread risk by allowing investors to invest across a broad range of stocks, often a whole index, single stock ETFs aim to spread risk by trading options to mitigate the risks
In a post on X, Fishback, who previously worked as an outside advisor to DOGE, said that the billionaire had "gone too far" with his latest plan to set up the "America Party" and take on both Republicans and Democrats.
Fishback, who included a letter to Tesla Chair Robyn Denholm in his X post, added that the new party "creates a conflict" with Musk's responsibilities as CEO of Tesla and "actively undermines" the company's mission.
"I encourage the Board to meet immediately and ask Elon to clarify his political ambitions and evaluate whether they are compatible with his full-time obligations to Tesla as CEO," said Fishback.
Tesla's share price was down as much as 7% premarket on Monday, as investors expressed unease over Musk's decision to dive back into politics.
Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives wrote in a Sunday note that investors were feeling a "sense of exhaustion" over Musk's new political party.
The longtime Tesla bear said that Musk, who told investors in April that he would step back from his role in the Trump administration to focus on the beleaguered EV maker, was going in "exactly the opposition direction" to what Tesla shareholders wanted.
Ives also warned that the billionaire's extremely public falling out with Trump could create additional hurdles for Tesla in the future.
Other investors expressed similar frustrations. "Waymo has solved autonomous driving. Meanwhile, Elon is starting a new political party," wrote Tesla investor and regular Musk critic Ross Gerber on X.
An outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump, Fishback told Business Insider in January he had served as an outside advisor to DOGE, and proposed the idea of a "DOGE dividend" earlier this year.
The investment banker, who has said that he owns Tesla stock and that the EV giant is Azoria's largest position, also accused Musk of being fixated on "sabotaging President Trump" and said the Tesla CEO was an "absolute failure" at DOGE in a series of posts on X.
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Black America Web
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Black America Web
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Yahoo
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Therefore, the question of 'How do we stop this tragedy from happening again?' has a pretty clear and obvious answer: Drive Republicans out of office. And that, I'm sorry to say, precludes the possibility of working arm-in-arm with the members of this criminal syndicate to solve the problems of the world. The scores who perished in these Texas floods deserve the finest politicization-of-their-deaths that the Democrats can muster: Take the cheapest shot, force Trump and his lackeys to defend themselves, shred their defense to pieces by demanding more and better, and then reload for the next disaster, which under Trump, as we know, will always be soon in arriving. I agree with The New Republic's editor Michael Tomasky that Trump's murderous new piece of legislation will reveal how cruel and stupid the Republicans have become; how could it not? 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