the global investor
Tesla's Elon Musk Spearheads Anti-Lockdown Movement
O
f course it was going to be Elon Musk. This week, the Tesla chief executive thrust himself to the forefront of America’s anti-lockdown movement by threatening to “immediately” relocate the electric car group’s California headquarters to Texas or Nevada; filing a lawsuit; and then restarting production at the company’s Fremont plant in defiance of authorities. Mr Musk may be one of the world’s loudest clean energy advocates, having almost single-handedly jump-started the market for electric cars. But he has long displayed the same hatred of being told what to do that fuels the gun-toting protesters who stormed Michigan’s state house to protest anti-coronavirus measures. Mr Musk has repeatedly tangled with US securities regulators about what he can and cannot
106
tweet about his publicly traded company. His 2016 decision to have Tesla acquire a lossmaking solar energy company that he helped start was roundly criticised. And he embroiled himself in a defamation lawsuit with an online verbal assault on a British diver who had accused Mr Musk of grandstanding during the 2018 rescue of 12 boys trapped a Thailand cave. Mr Musk eventually prevailed in the case.This time, Mr Musk’s stand-off with California bureaucrats, which included a taunt to arrest him if they so dared, was largely theatrical. By the time he threatened to leave the state, local officials had already said he could probably reopen the factory the following week, with new safety precautions in place. But it also won him new fans in America’s heartland and the White House. US president
Donald Trump tweeted that “California should let Musk open the plant, NOW”. Alex Epstein, a critic of electric cars and author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, says “Tesla now stands for freedom, versus just ‘green’”. Mr Musk’s stand-off is a deliberate, brilliant marketing ploy, argues Mario Herger, an electric vehicle advocate and author. Tesla is looking for a production site for the Cybertruck, its Blade Runner-inspired answer to the Ford F-150, America’s best-selling vehicle for the past 38 years. “With the cars he’s building now, and the Cybertruck, they aren’t aiming any more at the Silicon Valley freaks and geeks, they are aiming at the regular Joe, the red necks, the country boys, the contractors. Moving a factory to Texas brings them closer to this audience,” Mr Herger says.
www.theglobalinvestor.com
