Elon Musk ripped Alameda County, California today and announced on Twitter that he’s pulling up Tesla’s stakes there and headed to Texas and Nevada.
Frankly, this is the final straw. Tesla will now move its HQ and future programs to Texas/Nevada immediately. If we even retain Fremont manufacturing activity at all, it will be dependen on how Tesla is treated in the future. Tesla is the last carmaker left in CA.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 9, 2020
Musk has called the shutdown and lockdown orders fascist and become increasingly public in opposing them.
Musk at first defied Alameda’s mid-March shutdown order and resisted pressure from the county and Fremont to idle the Fremont factory. While Tesla claimed it was an essential business, the county’s health officer disagreed and said the plant posed a public-health risk. Much of the Bay area has extended shelter-in-place orders through the end of May.
California is our most populous state but it has not been particularly hard hit with the virus. It just ranks fifth nationally in total cases, with under 3,000 deaths among its 39 million residents. But Gov. Newsom and several state and local officials have gone after the virus with a sledgehammer when a scalpel would probably be wiser. Now they stand to lose a marquee business: Tesla. That was the last car manufacturer in California.
As for Musk, Texas is not new to him. His SpaceX has been launching rockets from the Texas coast for years. Tesla already manufactures its batteries in Nevada. Now Musk is joining the long parade of companies, and their jobs, leaving the former Golden State purely because it has become so anti-business.
Now, if he would only pull Tesla out of China…
Good for you, Mr. Musk! The state of California finally overloaded the camel. One thing, though, when you come to Texas, leave any of your employees that vote Democrat behind. We don’t need them in Texas.
Phil in TX
Please don’t bring anyDemocrats to Texas I want to retire there .
South Carolina is a business friendly state and would love for Mr. Musk to bring his business here! Again, leave the far left wingers in California! We don’t need them here.
Alabama how has Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Toyota, Mazda, and Hyundai building cars here. Toyota’s new $1.6 manufacturing plant opens this year, up to 4,500 employees and will produce up to 350,000 SUV’s a year. Most will NOT produce any CARB compliant vehicles. Let California built their own! I don’t want any DamnOCrats coming here! We wouldn’t welcome them, that’s for sure. And most would be jailed the first week anyway. They wouldn’t like it when the “Hounds” were chasing them. Maybe the gators would enjoy them? Or the snakes?
Goodbye Tesla your car is a murderer and you know it.
Doesn’t matter where Tesla goes. That company is through!!!!!
Blue Gas will wipe him out!!!!!
This might be an overreaction on Musk’s part. Tesla wasn’t singled out, and it’s NOT an essential business. We can live without Tesla’s (or any new cars) for a few months — not many are buying right now anyway. He faces the same shut-down order that everyone else has faced. Some states have caved to big business, some have not. I prefer the scalpel to sledge hammer approach — if the virus isn’t a big problem in your area why have as many restrictions? As long as the company is making efforts to protect employees and can show it it shouldn’t be forced to shut down completely. Maybe slow down due to active measures to protect employees (and therefore public in this case), or shut down for a few days until measures can be instated, but not a total shut-down. That’s the state official’s in charge call though. No way to tell if it’s the right call — but CA has relatively low case/death count compared to population, and want to keep it that way. Many states aren’t doing enough and having issues…
Frank S NYC is number one and parts of NJ are number 2. There are States that have only had I or 2 cases. How can you tell what is killing people in California? They have medieval diseases killing people every day.