Elon irked by Tesla boot from PC index

ESG is a scam. It has been weaponized by phony social justice warriors.

Elon Musk lashed out against “phony social justice warriors” Wednesday after Tesla was booted from a stock index that tracks sustainable and socially conscious companies.

The mogul’s rage came after his electric-vehicle maker was removed from the S&P 500 ESG index, a list of companies that ratings agency S&P Global believes is making “meaningful and measurable sustainability-focused enhancements.” ESG stands for “environmental, social and governance.”

About $65 billion is indexed or benchmarked to the S&P ESG index, compared to more than $13 trillion for the overall S&P 500 — which includes Tesla — according to Barron’s.

In a blog post explaining the change, S&P cited accusations of racial discrimination and poor working conditions at Tesla’s California factory, as well as Tesla’s handling of federal investigations of crashes involving its autopilot feature.

“While Tesla may be playing its part in taking fuel-powered cars off the road, it has fallen behind its peers when examined through a wider ESG lens,” S&P

Dow Jones Indices’ ESG chief Margaret Dorn wrote.

While the S&P 500 ESG index no longer includes the world’s largest producer of electric cars, it still contains one of the world’s largest oil producers — Exxon-Mobil — rankling Musk.

“Exxon is rated top ten best in world for . . . [ESG] by S&P 500, while Tesla didn’t make the list!” Musk wrote on Twitter. “ESG is a scam. It has been weaponized by phony social justice warriors.”

In a follow-up tweet, Musk accused S&P Global Ratings of having “lost their integrity.”

The mogul also posted a meme saying that ESG scores determine “how compliant your business is with the leftist agenda” with the caption “Despite Tesla doing more for the environment than any company ever!”

Musk has ranted about ESG in the past. “Stop the outrageous false ESG assessments, where Tesla gets a bad grade, but an oil company can get a good grade,” Musk wrote earlier in May. “Total gaming of the system!”

Tesla shares closed at $709.81 on Wednesday, a fall of 2.86% from Tuesday.