Cathie Wood has been an outspoken fan of Elon Musk which is evident from her public comments and a large stake in Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) over the years. Musk has been much more measured in his comments about Wood, although they do seem to have a common area of agreement in believing that passive investing has gone too far.
Like most things these days, it started on Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) when Netscape founder and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen was critical of the undue influence of money managers like Blackrock's (NYSE: BLK) Larry Fink, who have been pushing an ESG agenda on shareholders.
Andreessen believes that passive investing puts too much power in the hands of the professional-managerial class (PMC) who are less responsive to the interests of shareholders and more responsive to the interests of activists and governments. However, Blackrock and Fink have undue influence as it manages trillions in assets and is the largest shareholder of many institutions.
This is becoming an increasingly salient issue on the Right as politicians and individuals are attacking companies who are standing for liberal issues with Governor DeSantis in Florida going against Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) the latest example.
Musk stepped into the fray when he replied to Andreessen's tweetstorm: "Exactly. Right before he died, Jack Bogle (of Vanguard fame) said index/passive funds were too great a percentage of the market and he really knew what he was talking about! There should be a shift back towards active investment. Passive has gone too far."
Of course, Musk probably has had more interaction with passive managers voting their stake given his recent experiences.
Later, Cathie Wood chimed in to give her take. She agreed with Musk, saying, "In my view, history will deem the accelerated shift toward passive funds during the last 20 years as a massive misallocation of capital." She also used Tesla as an example, saying that passive investors missed out on the stock's 400-multiple gain since its IPO, and was only added to the S&P 500 (NYSE: SPY), 10 years after being a public company.
Of course, these criticisms miss the important point that passive investing is a response to the failures of active investing. Further, most people simply don't have the time or emotional bandwidth to handle the ups and downs of active investing. But, if conservatives are serious about curbing corporate power, then we should start to see more attacks on passive investing.