In Washington, Elon Musk was paramount in Trump's efforts to intestines programs designed to promote diversity.
At the same time, Tesla, the electric car that leads Mr. Musk, has tried in recent days, with little notification, to appease critics who have accused the company of racial discrimination.
In a small listed part of the annual report of the company published on January 29, the board promised to check “How Tesla recruits, develops and retains excellent talent.”
For shareholders who have long forced Tesla to tackle racism complaints in his factory in Fremont, California, the generic formulation seemed to represent a rare case that the company changed its behavior in the light of criticism.
For the first time, the board took responsibility for how the company treats employees, some investors said. It has been accused of being too passive in his supervision of Mr. Musk, who runs several other companies and has been deposited by President Trump to lower government spending.
“This is something we wanted for a long time,” says Kristin Hull, the founder of NIA Impact Capital, an investment fund based in Oakland, California, who has submitted the resolutions of the shareholders who calls on the board to a more active role to play.
In a separate letter to exhibition regulations, Tesla recognized that it responded to criticism from Dr. Hull and other shareholders. The company, which was sold almost half of the electric cars in the United States last year, has been sued by the California Civil Rights Department for what the agency called 'in -depth racial discrimination and intimidation'. Black employees at Tesla also brought lawsuits.
Tesla has denied that discrimination and disputed the lawsuits, although it resolved a case in March that was filed by a black employee who had won a jury prize against Tesla.
Employees in the Fremont factory complained that they were subjected to racial blemish and racist images. A state agency also said that employees reported that they had more physically difficult work and more often denied transfers and promotions than other employees.
The company did not respond to a request for comment.
Dr. Hull said it was “ironic” that Tesla looked like his efforts to promote equality in the workplace, even while Mr Musk Diversity, Fairness and Inclusion, or Dei, attacks programs. He often attacks diversity efforts on X, which makes false and misleading claims about them.
There are also signs that the political views of Mr. Musk and his close association with Mr. Trump and other right -wing political leaders are harming the sale of Tesla. Buyers of electric cars are usually more liberal than Mr. Musk and his political allies. Tesla's turnover in Germany fell 59 percent in January, compared to the same month last year, after Mr. Musk had ended a nationalist political party.
Surveys have shown that Mr. Musk's politics encourage that some American car buyers choose other brands. In California, which former Vice President Kamala Harris won in November, the registrations of new Teslas fell by 12 percent last year, even when the overall sale of electric cars and trucks rose slightly, according to the California New Car Dealers Association. California is good for almost a third of all electric vehicles sold in the United States.
Dr. Hull said that although the Tesla board was vague about how the directors would follow the working conditions, it would have established a legal obligation for shareholders.
“Is it concrete enough or detailed enough? No, “she said. “But it is much more than we expected from Tesla.”
NIA Impact will withdraw a resolution that was planning to present during the next annual meeting of Tesla calling on the board to “report to investors about how and how often the compensation committee assesses the practices of the Human Capital Management company,” said Dr. Hull.
Two other investors, Amalgamated Bank and Proxy Impact, have co -sponsored the proposal. Both companies force companies to be more included in their recruitment.
“Recognizing the need for more disclosure of the Compensation Committee on Human Capital Management is a good first step, and we look forward to more explicit information,” said Michael Passoff, the Chief Executive of Proxy Impact, in an E -mail.
The promise of the Tesla board to pay more attention to Human Resources was a direct answer to the resolution of NIA Impact, according to a letter that Xuehui Cassie Zhang, Associate General Counsel of Tesla, was sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission last month .
After receiving the proposed resolution, the letter, decided management and members of the board said to “include extra disclosures on the supervision of the Compensation Committee on the practices of the company's company.” The letter asked regulators for permission to exclude the resolution from the shareholders' meeting, with the argument that “the company has already implemented the proposal considerably.”
Tesla opposed similar proposals in previous years.
Mrs. Zhang did not respond to a request for comment.
Her letter noted that the charter of the Compensation Committee has already called on to supervise: “How the company recruits, develops and retains diverse talent.”
However, the annual report did not mention diversity, referring to the purpose of recruiting “excellent” talent.
Dr. Hull said that she equated excellence with diversity, but added: “I would like to know more about what Tesla considers 'excellent'.”
