May 9, 2025
— Jeff Ward, Lehigh Valley News Briefs
Lehigh County’s pension board voted this week not to buy more shares of Tesla, citing in part falling sales and a decline in earnings per share.
County Controller Mark Pinsley’s statement on the move also notes founder Elon Musk’s political activities and how Musk is, Pinsley says, “destabilizing one of America’s most recognizable brands.”
As I’m writing this at 10:15 a.m. on Friday, by the way, Tesla shares are trading at $304.63, up 7% from yesterday.
Pinsley’s move isn’t the first by a local elected official trying to sway investment decisions. To be sure, Pinsley, a Democrat, does make his case on Tesla’s financial state. At least ostensibly.
Look back 30 years, and we had a similar situation. Pennsylvania Rep. T.J. Rooney, D-133rd District (Bethlehem), and a few others in Harrisburg wanted to move pension money from Time Warner because they didn’t like some of the song lyrics. This started in 1995.
Song lyrics? Really? That seems quaint now. I hear worse lyrics being blasted out of cars when I walk through Historic Downtown Bethlehem.
Perhaps we need an executive order mandating the restoration of the Kingston Trio, the Shirelles and Rick Springfield. Good, clean music, although Jessie’s Girl might need some censorship.
Pension funds are there to generate income to pay pensions, for the lucky few who have them.
What’s next? Should pensions pull out of Amazon because founder Jeff Bezos pulled the Washington Post’s endorsement of a candidate? Start looking at the political leanings of chief executives, and you’ll run into problems fast and it works both ways, for both political parties.
Investing is about risk versus reward. I don’t like cigarettes, but for years I owned shares in what is now known as Altria (NYSE:MO), a big tobacco company. It paid off well.
As for Tesla, I owned a small stake long before there was such a thing as DOGE. I sold it, and did pretty well, but I decided to get rid of it for two financial reasons:
1-My stocks were far overweight toward technology.
2-Tesla has a history of making promises and not keeping them (self-driving cars, for example).
That’s how decisions should be made in pension funds. Based on financial projections, target returns and risk tolerance, not politics.
Lehigh Valley News Briefs 
I’ve never met this guy, Pinsley. He appears to be the worst example of a politician. He seems to use his position, whatever it is, to promote himself, ego or political ambitions. His name keeps coming up when he calls a press conference to yell about something. PANDERING to get votes for whatever he is supposed to be doing in government “for the people”.
Pinsley is the best local example of why we dislike politicians. It’s about them not the people or taxpayers. Ugh !!!
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