National Post (National Edition)
Musk emerges as loudest proponent for reopening
Threatens to pull Tesla plant out of California
Tesla Inc. asserts that restarting its operations in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic doesn’t make the company an outlier, nor is it going against the grain.
But its chief executive’s handling of the health crisis has been anything but ordinary. Tesla sued the county blocking its car plant from reopening, with Elon Musk calling the local health officer — a former infectious diseases professor with a master’s degree in public health — “unelected & ignorant.” He threatened to move Tesla’s headquarters out of California, warning that all its manufacturing may leave the state, too.
The weekend flare-up was without precedent in the three months since the first confirmed COVID-19 death in the U.S. — a resident of Santa Clara County, home to Tesla’s headquarters and neighbour to its factory in Fremont, California. As the nation’s death toll approaches 80,000, Musk has emerged as arguably the loudest voice in corporate America advocating for the economy to reopen.
“I’m not messing around,” the 48-year-old billionaire tweeted after Tesla filed its lawsuit against Alameda County. “Absurd & medically irrational behaviour in violation of constitutional civil liberties, moreover by *unelected* county officials with no accountability, needs to stop.”
On Monday Tesla told employees at its primary vehicle factory in California to return to work, defying local officials, who said days earlier that the plant should remain closed as lockdown measures remain in effect to curb the spread of the coronavirus, Reuters reported.
In an email on Monday, Tesla referred to an order on Thursday by California’s governor allowing manufacturers to resume operations and said that as of Sunday, previously furloughed employees were back to their regular employment status.
“We’re happy to get back to work and have implemented very detailed plans to help you keep safe as you return,” according to the email seen by Reuters and titled “Furlough Has Ended And We Are Back To Work in Production!”
Tesla shares fell one per cent on Monday in New York. The stock has soared 96 per cent this year.
Tesla does have a case to make for being unexceptional within the auto industry. Ford Motor Co., Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, Toyota Motor Corp. and others also have set dates for restarting operations, only to then call off those plans due to shutdown orders.
Daimler AG has reopened a Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama, as has its German peer BMW AG in South Carolina. Toyota and Honda Motor Co. will resume work at U.S. factories this week, followed by General Motors Co., Ford and Fiat Chrysler on May 18. But no carmaker other than Tesla has publicly attacked local health officials or threatened states over shelter-in-place measures that virtually wiped out North American vehicle production for more than a month.
During GM’s first-quarter earnings call on May 6, CEO Mary Barra said the automaker was having “very constructive” conversations with government officials.
“We’re in a good position as we talk to country leaders and state leaders,” she said. “We’ll continue to have dialogue with our unions, as well as with the government leaders, to do the right thing.”
Musk called shutdown orders “fascist” and unconstitutional, likening them to forcible imprisonment and saying they were “breaking people’s freedoms in ways that are horrible and wrong.”
His actions have been unique among companies in the San Francisco Bay area, but his comments were embraced by some Silicon Valley venture capitalists and political conservatives.