Comment This is a comment, written by an editorial staff member. The commentary expresses the writer’s views.
The Norwegian Government’s pension fund abroad, “Oljefondet” colloquially, is about to become a Nicolai Tangen show with invited guests. The head of the Oil Fund apparently has an urgent need to build his reputation, which middle-aged people often get.
He can of course do that freely in his own free time, with both the Kunstsiloen and other things. However, he also does it on the platform created by our joint income and the Norwegian state’s trusted code of conduct.
This makes his bosses, Ida Wolden Bache and Trygve Slagsvold Vedum, appear like puppets.
In his annual speech, Bache called for confidence in the central bank from the Norwegian people and the trade unions. Meanwhile, Tangen gets to know Elon on the podcast. Vedum pointed the finger at the farming barons and tax evaders, while the Oil Fund threatened Dagens Næringsliv with being shut out of next year’s investment conference.
Because they made journalism about another billionaire, Ole Andreas “Tigergut” Halvorsen, who would prefer to be untouchable and invisible.
Vedum thinks that Tangen is a healthy and cheerful guy. Otherwise, he laughs off questions about whether Tangen’s profile is really in Norway’s best interests.
The tang’s splash is bordering on embarrassing. He is keen to hang with the big boys. But there are political ramifications here.
Just look at Musk’s wagging. The oil fund manager recently tempted Elon Musk with dinner until next year. Tangen himself will be cooking with the Ferrari boss the day before the investment conference. Other elite directors are invited to a private tete-a-tete with the oil fund manager.
“What makes a great company” is the theme for next year’s conference. I strongly expect that the conversation during the dinner, which is exempt from public inspection, will not be about workers’ rights.
Because what makes a company “great” in Musk’s case is pure contempt for unions and unwillingness to sign collective agreements. None of Tesla’s 128,000 employees worldwide have a collective agreement.
For months, Swedish trade unions have been on strike to get an agreement in place. They are, of course, strongly supported by Norwegian trade unions. The Nordic model is at stake, and the opponent is one of the world‘s most powerful financiers.
It is a battle between values. Community solutions – which the oil fund also represents, in case Tangen has forgotten, are in direct opposition to the billionaire’s imagined meritocracy and tough liberalism.
For the Labor Party, the billionaire camaraderie of Tangen should be politically inedible. But from that edge it is quiet. LO leader Peggy Hessen Følsvik, for her part, called for accountability from the Oil Fund.
– If Tesla does not meet the fund’s requirements, the Ethics Council should consider excluding the company. It cannot be that our common wealth should make money from a company that violates basic labor rights, she told Dagens Næringsliv in December last year.
We will see what to do, the Oil Fund replied to Følsvik. And invited Musk to “the coolest dinner in Europe”.
Three other politically extremely inflammatory things I’m absolutely sure Tangen won’t ask his buddy Musk about:
He is not going to converse lightly about Musk’s extended campaign to end US arms support to Ukraine. Had it failed to take place, it would have affected the Norwegian security situation to the highest degree.
So powerful is Musk that he was able to single-handedly set the wheels in motion for a Ukrainian surprise attack on Russian ships last year. For a guy who doesn’t want to be a player in the war, he’s clearly acting on the Russian side.
I also do not think that Tangen will prosecute the EU investigation into Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) being used extensively in disinformation campaigns in the Isreal-Gaza war. Where Musk himself shared fake AI-generated images of the conflict on his own account.
Tangen is also not going to care about Musk’s constant support for conspiracy theories, including blatant and dangerous anti-Semitism.
No, this is a rude topic for dinner parties, us billionaires among us.
The oil fund can invest in companies, without all Norwegians having to collectively like the people who lead them. But an oil fund manager sends political signals with his podcasts and dinner parties, where few critical questions are asked of the companies that defacto benefit from our investing in them.
It is an expensive time in Norway and the world. It is embarrassing enough that Gustav Witzøe junior struts like a modern Caligula at the Met Gala in New York. There he shows what income from unrestricted access to the Norwegian public can buy.
The oil fund is a tool for future welfare for my and your children. It is naive that Norwegian politicians, and the governor of the central bank, allow Nicolai Tangen to use it to build his own profile and network.