Stand Tall Stanford. Lead Again – Divest TESLA!

Posted on | June 24, 2025 | Comments Off on Stand Tall Stanford. Lead Again – Divest TESLA!

Mike Magee

On the Stanford campus this Spring, in the middle of Silicon Valley, it was impossible not to hear echoes of Apartheid re-emerging with force 3/4 of a century after the original battle for social justice here and in far away lands was fully engaged. Stanford’s President, Jonathan Levin, said it best in his public support of Harvard, after Columbia capitulated to Trump.

Levin’s statement read:

“America’s universities are a source of great national strength, creating knowledge and driving innovation and economic growth. This strength has been built on government investment but not government control. The Supreme Court recognized this years ago when it articulated the essential freedoms of universities under the First Amendment as the ability to determine who gets to teach, what is taught, how it is taught, and who is admitted to study. . . Universities need to address legitimate criticisms with humility and openness. But the way to bring about constructive change is not by destroying the nation’s capacity for scientific research, or through the government taking command of a private institution. Harvard’s objections to the letter it received are rooted in the American tradition of liberty, a tradition essential to our country’s universities, and worth defending.”

As students prepared to head home for the summer, Stanford Trustees gathered quietly to advice their university president how best to handle Trump and Musk aided assaults on university autonomy, DEI, and challenges to F-1 visas for full-time international students pursuing academic studies.

Stanford had found itself in a harsh spotlight two months earlier in a Feb. 10, 2025 Wall Street Journal report that read, “Steve Davis, who earned a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from Stanford, led advanced projects at Musk’s rocket company SpaceX before taking over as president of Musk’s tunnel startup The Boring Company, according to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. He’s Musk’s key lieutenant in his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).”

That was quite a wake-up call on campus. After all, it was a sit-in, staged by Stanford students nearly a half century ago to protest South African Apartheid, that redefined that struggle by focusing on the use of university divestiture to deliver an “economic punch” to the ruling minority. Another South African, Elon Musk, had attempted to manage his illegal alien status by enrolling in Stanford as a graduate student in 1995, only to bale 2 days after enrollment to pursue his internet get-rich scheme.

Two decades earlier, a decision made by the Stanford Board to oppose a Ford Motor Company stockholder’s proposal to withdraw operations from South Africa had triggered a campus revolt. Stanford at the time held 93,950 shares of Ford Stock. In response to the inaction, the Stanford students launched a sit-in (captured by the Stanford Daily student newspaper below) inside the Old Student Union Building at 1 P.M. on Monday, May 9, 1977. When they wouldn’t leave five hours later, 294 students and faculty were arrested including the daughter of the U.S, Secretary of Labor, Jill Ann Marshall.

Six months later, after repeated demonstrations and disruptions on campus, the Board issued a statement that each of their trustees held a “deep aversion to the practice of apartheid”, and adopted a “South Africa-related ethical investment policy.” Still it took until 1985 for the university to “create formal investment policies that explicitly set out guidelines for investing in South Africa-related companies.”

Many of us today, in our 70s and 80s, once again feel the familiar strains of suppression and oppression in the behavior and actions of Trump and Musk, as he toggled emotionally between Texas, South Africa, the Silicon Valley, and Washington. The Musk-led and Trump enabled assault, disguised as “efficiency” is little more than stealing money from the poor to give to the rich, widening an already extraordinary income gap.

Violence at home and abroad is once again in the air, driven by intense greed, cruelty, subjugation, and the targeting of vulnerable peoples. Oligarchic and super-aggressive, sadly there is nothing new here. Musk’s child-like behavior obsesses on a “super-hero” world and visions of Mars as he ravages the inhabitants of Mother Earth.

Given his life origins and path, it is not surprising that he has left Washington in response to intensive economic isolation. And this time it is not Ford, but Tesla divestiture, that has been front and center. But his foot soldiers remain, continuing the active dismantling of our government’s structural pillars.

Like Harvard, Stanford is an elite university with large numbers of foreign students, many engaged in basic scientific research, information technology, and engineering. 13% of Stanford undergraduates are international, and 36% of its graduates students are from outside the U.S. Both universities also share large endowments and a history of active social engagement.

Stanford’s 2024 financial returns on its’ “Merged Pool” (the principal investment vehicle for the university’s endowment) documented an endowment of some $43 billion with returns that year on investments of 8.4% (their 5 year return was 9.9%).

The University Trustees, in June, 2020, updated their “Ethical Investment Framework” whose origins date back to its’ epic battle with students and faculty last century over South African Apartheid. In the final paragraph of this statement, the Trustees proclaim, “In rare instances, the University’s Board of Trustees may elect to divest specific companies or categories of investment that are deemed abhorrent and ethically unjustifiable.” I would suggest that investment in Tesla is one of those “rare instances.”

Investing in Tesla is tantamount to investing in their founder and CEO, Elon Musk. His own shareholders took him to court last year and were granted relief from his demand for a $56 billion annual salary. The case remains under appeal. This after he literally abandoned his struggling company for nearly a year as he labored, first to get Trump elected, and then to serve as lead henchmen in dismantling nearly every federal agency at the hands of a lethal band of “20 something year-old IT henchmen” with a Stanford grad and Trump employee in the lead.

Musk quite literally is Tesla. 60% of his wealth exists as Tesla stock. He owns 13% of the company’s holdings. But it’s been a rocky road since his MAGA chainsaw appearances. In the past six months the stock has gone from $430 a share to $348, and that’s only with the help of a 8% bump up this week on the carefully staged launch of the Tesla Robotaxi in Austin, Texas. The NY Post covered it all, including a dangerous illegal turn and broken speed limits. But social media gave it 5 stars. Why? As the paper reported, “Despite the apparent hiccups, Tesla shares surged after a handpicked group of influencers who participated in the trial run uploaded positive reviews on X and other social media platforms.”

Musk leaves little to chance. And neither should Stanford Trustees. His profiteering with Trump is obvious, visible, and accelerating even as another SpaceX rocket spectacularly burst into flames last week.

A Tesla Divestiture allows citizens the ability to send a tangible message. Along with demonstrations, like the 5 million strong NO KINGS marches last week in response to Trump’s Birthday Military parade, concrete actions like these are the most likely way to “deliver us from evil” as they did with South African apartheid on April 27, 1994.

Musk=Trump=Vance=ICE Raids=Autocracy

Want to help? In addition to encouraging Stanford Trustees to stand tall, here are 3 easy steps and then one more.

1. Trade it in. If you own a Tesla, trade it in for another brand now.

2. Check – Do you or your organization own Tesla stock in any form?

3. If yes, organize a teach-in, to explain Divestiture (as in SA Apartheid), its’ purpose and utility.

4. Circulate and post an online petition to ask your organization to divest of all Tesla holdings.

. . . and one more, Copy and Share this post with all your contacts.