Investment firm Azoria postpones Tesla ETF after Musk says forming new political party
Musk made the announcement a day after polling his followers on the X social media platform he owns, declaring, 'Today the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.'
For all the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
Azoria was set to launch the Tesla ETF, which would invest in the electric vehicle company's shares and options, next week.
However, following Musk's announcement Azoria CEO James Fishback posted on X several critical comments of the new party and repeated his support for US President Donald Trump.
That culminated in a post where Fishback announced the postponement of the ETF.
'I encourage the Board to meet immediately and ask Elon to clarify his political ambitions and evaluate whether they are compatible with his full-time obligations to Tesla as CEO,' Fishback said.
The announcement undermines the confidence shareholders had in Tesla's future after Musk said in May he was stepping back from his role leading the Department of Government Efficiency, Fishback said.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a Reuters' request for comment.
The announcement from Musk comes after Trump signed his self-styled 'big, beautiful' tax-cut and spending bill into law on Friday, which Musk fiercely opposed.
Azoria is also offering the Azoria 500 Meritocracy ETF that only invests in the top 500 US companies that do not impose hiring targets under diversity, equity and inclusion programs, according to its website.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Asharq Al-Awsat
an hour ago
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Trump Calls Musk's Formation of New Party ‘Ridiculous'
US President Donald Trump on Sunday slammed former ally Elon Musk's launching of a new political party as 'ridiculous,' after the tech billionaire said he wanted to challenge the country's 'one-party system.' 'I think it's ridiculous to start a third party,' Trump told reporters before he boarded Air Force One on his way back to Washington from his New Jersey golf club. 'It's always been a two-party system, and I think starting a third party just adds to confusion. Third parties have never worked,' he said. Trump added, 'So he can have fun with it, but I think it's ridiculous.' Musk, the world's richest man, spent some $270 million underwriting Trump's 2024 re-election effort and, for a time, regularly showed up at the president's side in the White House Oval Office and elsewhere. Musk spearheaded the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), aimed at cutting government spending, before he pulled back his involvement in late May, saying he would now be allocating far more time to his electric vehicle company Tesla, which reported a huge drop in profit and sales worldwide since the tech tycoon made a brief venture into Trump's inner circle. Shortly after his pull back from DOGE, the two men were exchanging bitter insults on social media after Musk criticized Trump's flagship spending bill. As the bill made its way through Congress, Musk had threatened to form the 'America Party' if 'this insane spending bill passes.' That bill passed the Senate by a narrow margin midday Tuesday. In response, Musk carried out his threat and announced that he is establishing the 'America Party.'

Al Arabiya
2 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
US tariffs to kick in August 1 if partners don't strike deals: Bessent
US tariffs will kick in on August 1 if trading partners from Taiwan to the European Union do not strike deals with Washington, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday. The rates will 'boomerang back' to the sometimes very high levels that President Donald Trump had announced on April 2 -- before he suspended the levies to allow for trade talks and set a July 9 deadline for agreements, Bessent told CNN. Bessent confirmed comments by Trump to reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday in which he also cited a new deadline: 'Well, I'll probably start them on August 1.' The president told reporters Sunday he had signed about a dozen letters to inform countries of rate hikes, to be sent out on Monday. 'I think we'll have most countries done by July 9, either a letter or a deal,' Trump told reporters Sunday, adding that some deals have already been made. Standing at his side, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick confirmed tariffs would kick in on August 1, 'but the President is setting the rates and the deals right now.' The tariffs were part of a broader announcement in April where Trump imposed a 10 percent duty on goods from almost all trading partners, with a plan to step up these rates for a select group within days. But he swiftly paused the hikes until July 9, allowing for trade talks to take place. Countries have been pushing to strike deals that would help them avoid these elevated duties. So far, the Trump administration has unveiled deals with the United Kingdom and Vietnam, while Washington and Beijing agreed to temporarily lower staggeringly high levies on each other's products. Bessent said the administration was 'close to several deals.' 'I would expect to see several big announcements over the next couple of days,' he said. But he would not say which countries he was referring to, adding: 'I don't want to let them off the hook.' 'Maximum pressure' playbook Aboard Air Force One on Friday, Trump said sending notices would be much easier than 'sitting down and working 15 different things... this is what you have to pay, if you want to do business (with) the United States.' Bessent pushed back at CNN host Dana Bash's assertion the administration was using threats rather than negotiations, and denied that Trump was setting a new deadline with the August 1 date. 'It's not a new deadline. We are saying, this is when it's happening. If you want to speed things up, have at it. If you want to go back to the old rate, that's your choice,' he said. He said the playbook was to apply 'maximum pressure' and cited the European Union as an example, saying they are 'making very good progress' after a slow start. EU and US negotiators are holding talks over the weekend, and France's finance minister said Saturday he hoped they could strike a deal this weekend. Other countries were still expressing unease, however. Japan's Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said Sunday he 'won't easily compromise' in trade talks with Washington. And BRICS leaders of fast-growing economies meeting in Rio de Janeiro raised 'serious concerns' that the 'indiscriminate' import tariffs were illegal and risked hurting global trade. When probed about worries that steep levies could feed into broader US inflation, Bessent said there was a difference between 'inflation and one-time price adjustments.' 'Inflation is a generalized monetary phenomenon. We're not going to see that. And thus far, we haven't even seen the one-time price adjustments,' Bessent told Fox News Sunday.


Arab News
2 hours ago
- Arab News
Trump administration's crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus activists faces federal trial
BOSTON: A federal bench trial begins Monday over a lawsuit that challenges a Trump administration campaign of arresting and deporting faculty and students who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations and other political activities. The lawsuit, filed by several university associations against President Donald Trump and members of his administration, would be one of the first to go to trial. Plaintiffs want US District Judge William Young to rule the policy violates the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act, a law governs the process by which federal agencies develop and issue regulations. 'The policy's effects have been swift. Noncitizen students and faculty across the United States have been terrified into silence,' the plaintiffs wrote in their pretrial brief. 'Students and faculty are avoiding political protests, purging their social media, and withdrawing from public engagement with groups associated with pro-Palestinian viewpoints,' they wrote. 'They're abstaining from certain public writing and scholarship they would otherwise have pursued. They're even self-censoring in the classroom.' Several scholars are expected to testify how the policy and subsequent arrests have prompted them to abandon their activism for Palestinian human rights and criticizing Israeli government's policies. Since Trump took office, the US government has used its immigration enforcement powers to crack down on international students and scholars at several American universities. Trump and other officials have accused protesters and others of being 'pro-Hamas,' referring to the Palestinian militant group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Many protesters have said they were speaking out against Israel's actions in the war. Plaintiffs single out several activists by name, including Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, who was released last month after spending 104 days in federal immigration detention. Khalil has become a symbol of Trump 's clampdown on campus protests. The lawsuit also references Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was released in May from a Louisiana immigration detention. She spent six weeks in detention after she was arrested walking on the street of a Boston suburb. She claims she was illegally detained following an op-ed she co-wrote last year that criticized the school's response to Israel's war in Gaza. The plaintiffs also accuse the Trump administration of supplying names to universities who they wanted to target, launching a social media surveillance program and used Trump's own words in which he said after Khalil's arrest that his was the 'first arrest of many to come.' The government argued in court documents that the plaintiffs are bringing a First Amendment challenge to a policy 'of their own creation.' 'They do not try to locate this program in any statute, regulation, rule, or directive. They do not allege that it is written down anywhere. And they do not even try to identify its specific terms and substance,' the government argues. 'That is all unsurprising, because no such policy exists.' They argue the plaintiffs case also rest on a 'misunderstanding of the First Amendment, 'which under binding Supreme Court precedent applies differently in the immigration context than it otherwise does domestically.' But plaintiffs counter that evidence at the trial will show the Trump administration has implemented the policy a variety of ways, including issuing formal guidance on revoking visas and green cards and establishing a process for identifying those involved in pro-Palestinian protests. 'Defendants have described their policy, defended it, and taken political credit for it,' plaintiffs wrote. 'It is only now that the policy has been challenged that they say, incredibly, that the policy does not actually exist. But the evidence at trial will show that the policy's existence is beyond cavil.'