Mark D. Levine
24.9K posts
@MarkLevineNYC
Comptroller of New York City.
Allow me to educate you on how capital markets work, Councilmember. When SpaceX goes public and joins the S&P 500 our pension funds will own it through indexing. That will make our City workers and retirees major shareholders. (We have over $80B in index funds.) My job will be to fight for our shareholder rights. It will not be good for us—or capital markets—if there is no independent board, no ability to fire the CEO, no right of shareholder judicial action etc etc. You are free to bow down to Elon Musk, Councilmember. I serve no one but NYC’s employees and retirees.
.@elonmusk is planning to take @SpaceX public with the least democratic corporate governance structure ever seen in a major IPO. No independent Board. Musk would serve as both chair and CEO, with veto power over his own removal. Perpetual super-voting shares. Severe restrictions on shareholder legal action. I’m joining @NYSComptroller and @CalPERS to urge SpaceX to fix this, to protect shareholder rights and strengthen accountability. Together our pension funds manage over $1T in assets, including significant exposure to SpaceX. And through indexing, public pension funds and millions of Americans will become major shareholders after the IPO. Public markets work best when companies are transparent and accountable. For the public-sector workers and retirees we serve—and for millions of Americans with index funds—we strongly urge SpaceX to implement a more open and democratic governance structure.
Why is the comptroller threatening to tank the public pension fund because he doesn’t like Elon Musk? The only question of whether to invest pension money in a stock is ‘will this make more money for pensioners’. That’s it. That’s your fiduciary responsibility as a comptroller. Anything else is a breach of trust. Retirees want to know their money is growing, not that you’re using the funds they worked hard for their entire lives are being used to play stupid political games.
Exclusive: New York, California pension leaders oppose 'extreme' SpaceX control structure reut.rs/4dHKhBF reut.rs/4dHKhBF
Yet another one of these events planned at City Hall this week. Particularly tone deaf after the violence we’ve seen directed at synagogues and Jewish neighborhoods over the past few days, but they REALLY want to make sure we understand who’s in charge now.
