Excellent ESG performance is crucial for stimulating the vitality of micro entities and achieving sustainable macroeconomic development. Effectively improving the ESG performance of state-owned enterprises constitutes the necessary meaning of promoting the high-quality development of state-owned enterprises in the new era. Based on the quasi-natural experiment of the bonus incentive reform of central state-owned enterprises (No. 148), this paper systematically examines the impact of partitioning of property rights on the ESG performance of state-owned enterprises. The results show that partitioning of property rights based on the bonus incentive reform is helpful in improving the ESG performance of state-owned enterprises, and this conclusion remains valid after a series of robustness tests. Mechanism testing indicates that partitioning of property rights can increase the value creation level of state-owned enterprises’ employees internally and enhance the public’s green attention to state-owned enterprises externally, thereby strengthening the motivation and capability of state-owned enterprises to improve their ESG performance. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the above positive effects are more pronounced in regions with a higher level of talent cultivation, better protection of labor rights, and a higher level of carbon emissions and air pollution, as well as in state-owned enterprises with lower employee salary and welfare, highly competitive industries, and high-tech industries. This paper not only expands the academic research on the economic consequences of partitioning of property rights, but also provides a significant practical reference for the Party and the state to strengthen, optimize, and expand state-owned enterprises.