Last August, the Biden Administration snubbed Elon Musk and Tesla by failing to send Tesla an invitation to an electric car summit. Based on comments made by Biden, some observers speculated that Biden didn’t invite Tesla because it isn’t unionized.
When confronted on why Tesla wasn’t invited, Pete Buttegieg said only, “I’m not sure.”
Now Biden appears to have deliberately ignored Tesla yet again in a Tweet in which he mentioned that GM and Ford were focused on building electric vehicles in the United States.
Elon Musk, of course, was quick to retort:
Tesla was an early mover in the modern electric vehicle niche and still purely manufactures electric vehicles. It developed its own EV charger, the Supercharger, when there was a lack of charging infrastructure for EVs. Last July, it announced plans to open the Supercharger to other EVs through a special adapter.
Cars.com gave the Model 3 the top slot on its 2021 list of most American-made vehicles. The Model Y took third place. Musk’s insistence on controlling as much of the supply chain as possible, including manufacturing parts in-house or owning stakes in companies that make EV components like batteries, is a likely factor in the high ratings for these models.
He does admit that the supply chain is a challenge, though. The ongoing semiconductor chip shortage especially put a crimp in the automotive industry’s overall ability to make the electric components of their vehicles.
In deals with mining companies, Tesla has insisted that environmentally friendly mining practices should be used and seems to favor deals with companies that operate in countries with strong environmental practices. That includes North America and Australia.
CNBC reported that GM aims to overtake Tesla in EV sales in 2025. Even setting aside Elon Musk’s snarky comments about GM, this could pose a major challenge, considering that GM sold only 26 EVs in all of 2021 and Tesla delivered 308,600 vehicles in Q4 2021 alone. Tesla is also apparently nearly ready to open Gigafactory Berlin and still working on Gigafactory Texas.
President Biden also wasn’t spared Elon Musk’s snarky tweets. Musk went on to call Biden “a wet sock puppet in human form.” He also accused Biden of being “controlled by unions,” especially in the wake of Biden giving the UAW credit for his election. He also borrowed a bit from Trump calling him “Sleepy Joe” by saying that he was “still sleeping” during the Inspiration4 mission.
Inspiration4 was SpaceX’s (and the world’s) first all-private space mission. It flew last September on the Crew Dragon “Resilience” and raised $200 million for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, including a large donation made by Elon Musk. A documentary on Inspiration4 titled Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space can be found on Netflix.
Musk has also expressed his disagreements with Trump over the former president’s decision to exit the Paris Climate Accords and suspend some Obama-era environmental regulations. He claimed that Trump’s suspension of the regulations hurt the carbon credit market in a lawsuit.
His blistering of politicians also includes accusing Elizabeth Warren of “freeloading off taxpayers.” Warren spent thousands of dollars on Facebook ads attacking Elon Musk and asking for campaign donations.
Musk has suggested that there should be an upper age limit “just under 70” for eligibility to be president. This requirement would have ruled out both Biden and Trump. The Constitution currently says only that presidents should be at least 35 years old.
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