Praise Musk: Mormons invest part of their gigantic $100 billion fund in Tesla

During the last quarter of 2021, Ensign Peak Advisors, the fund of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, cut its stake in Ford and General Motors, while continuing to increase its position in Teslaaccording to the report of the entity itself.

The fund of the Mormon Church is one of the largest in the world. Raised with the donations of more than 16 million parishioners, Ensign Peak Advisors’ investment portfolio totals more than $52 billion and exceeds $100 billion if forest and hedge fund holdings are taken into account. Major holdings in the portfolio include Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon. Likewise, it excludes securities from the tobacco and alcohol sectors.

Although it was created more than 50 years ago, it was not known of its existence until 2019 following a lawsuit for fraud in the use of donations. Since then, the financial sector has closely followed the changes in its composition.

Ensign Peak Advisors increased its assets by nearly $4 billion and initiated more than 400 new positions throughout the fourth quarter of last year. Specifically, she increased a 19% his stake in Tesla, while cutting its position in Ford and General Motors by 60% and 44%, respectively. It also cut its stake in AT&T by almost 80%.

Among the new additions, Pfizer and Procter & Gamble stand out. The fund of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was made with almost 2 million shares of the pharmaceutical, whose market value is close to 400 million dollars. As for the consumer goods giant, valued at more than $390 million, Ensign Peak Advisors bought some 586,360 shares, increasing its stake by 32%..

One of the most notorious operations of the Mormon Church fund was the purchase of about 46,000 shares of GameStop at the end of 2020. The spike in this meme stock in early 2021 reported to the entity a profit of 900%.

Charlie Munger thought Tesla would be a failure

Tesla has become a winning bet for many investment funds. In 2021, its net profit exceeded 5.5 billion dollars and it has a market capitalization of 954.3 billion dollars. However, there was a time when more than one thought that the car manufacturer would be a failure. Among them, Charlie Munger, vice president of Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett’s right-hand man.

I was at a lunch with Munger in 2009 where he told the whole table all the ways Tesla would fail.

Made me quite sad, but I told him I agreed with all those reasons & that we would probably die, but it was worth trying anyway.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 16, 2022

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has shared through his official Twitter account that, at a meal held back in 2009, Munger detailed “all the ways Tesla would fail”.

The CEO of the car manufacturer has used this anecdote in response to recent comments by the vice president of Berkshire Hathaway in which compared cryptocurrencies to a “venereal disease”.