Antonio Gracias, the head of $17bn investment firm Valor Equity Partners, has been forced to defend his work for Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency after pressure on its investors.
The American Federation of Teachers last week claimed that its lobbying of pension funds that invest in Valor had forced Gracias to give up his post at Doge. The AFT had argued that Gracias’s role had distracted him from running the fund.
Gracias, a close Musk ally, responded on Monday, saying it was “false” that he had “abrogated my responsibilities to Valor” or “‘abandoned’ our work at Doge”.
The AFT joined other investors who pressed Musk to devote 40 hours per week to his job as Tesla chief executive, as consumer backlash against his political interventions hit the electric-car maker’s sales. Musk stepped down from Doge in May to focus on his companies.
Gracias joined Musk at Doge following a long relationship with the world’s richest man, including serving on the boards of Tesla and SpaceX, and helping to fund Musk’s $44bn buyout of Twitter, now X, in 2022.
At least two other senior Valor employees, vice-president Jon Koval and data engineer Payton Rehling, also took on roles at Doge.
The row over their work for Doge started earlier this month when Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT, wrote to nine public pension funds that invest AFT members’ funds in Valor, requesting them to review their dealings with the investment firm.
AFT members have about $4tn invested across multiple pension funds, of which $1.8bn was invested in Valor, the union said.
Lambert here: Utter bankruptcy of the union movement, so far as I’m concerned. Why do we want more attention paid to fraud and asset stripping?
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