Bloomberg By Dana Hull and Jennifer Jacobs 2/2/2022
• Tesla CEO says president is ‘damp sock puppet in human form’
• Biden antipathy stems from difference on unions, official says
President Joe Biden calls himself a union guy and a car guy, and he’s embraced electric vehicles as vital to his economic and climate ambitions.
But there’s one U.S. car company he won’t talk about: Tesla Inc., the world’s most valuable automaker and the global brand most clearly associated with EVs.
“I meant it when I said the future was going to be made right here in America,” Biden said in a tweeted video with General Motors Co. chair and Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra on Thursday. “Companies like GM and Ford are building more electric vehicles here at home than ever before.”
The tweet didn’t go unobserved by avid Twitter user and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. “Starts with a T. Ends with an A. ESL in the middle,” he replied.
At every opportunity, Biden hails progress Ford and GM have made toward fielding an electric fleet. But his ongoing and obvious snubs of Tesla -- a source of mild intrigue within the administration -- have sparked increasingly exasperated public reactions from Musk, the world’s wealthiest person and the CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, which has government contracts with NASA and the U.S. military.
In 2021, Tesla delivered over 936,000 cars globally. GM sold nearly 480,000 EVs last year, mostly in China. In the U.S., the company had to recall its electric Chevrolet Bolt because of risk of battery fires and sold just 26 EVs in the fourth quarter -- 25 Bolts and one electric GMC Hummer pickup truck.
More:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-02/tesla-who-biden-can-t-bring-himself-to-say-name-angering-musk?utm_content=politics&utm_medium=social&cmpid%3D=socialflow-twitter-politics&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic
