[slily]

This doesn't address the contradiction. The fact that a CEO's sociopolitical views take precedence over the impact of the actual company is exactly why ESG is a cancerous tool for political activism that should not be taken seriously by ethically-minded investors. (Kind of like DEI actually since you brought that up.)

[Spivak]

It sounds like ESGs aren't for you then, or at least you want an index that is almost entirely weighted on E scores.

> take precedence over the impact of the actual company

Either you think that social (and to a lesser extent governance) impact is impact or you don't and that will pretty much decide how you view ESGs. It's not as if Elon is ranting in a vacuum where those views don't manifest in real effects in the companies he owns and the wider political sphere. Regardless of how you feel about how S scores as they're currently measured and their worth as an ethical north star Musk companies don't get very many marks. And that's fine -- I think that's the point, it seems very purposeful. It seems that Elon only actually cared when that fact hurt his stock price, not on principle.

And I'm sure investing in 1789 Capital will skew the other direction and that's fine too. You won't hear me saying their indexes are illegitimate because they do what it says on the tin.

[slily]

Elon Musk got the stick for being outspoken and disagreeing with elements of a quasi-religious ideology (disregarding his further radicalization following that event). ESG doesn't "do what it says on the tin", there would be no significant backlash if it did. And it's just ridiculous to claim that mean tweets from a CEO outweigh the huge environmental impact of Tesla to the point that Exxon is/was ranked higher by ESG metrics. This absurd gaslighting and word-twisting does not work anymore which is why ESG, DEI and the like are being rejected.