Elon Musk has said that Tesla will file a lawsuit against Alameda County, California, and also threatened to pull the company out of the area completely.
Tesla had informed workers that manufacturing would begin on Friday, 8th May 2020. However, it’s resumption was thwarted after Alameda authorities issued a statement prohibiting ‘non-essential manufacturing’ from resuming until after 31st May.
After the US President’s and California’s Governor’s announcement of easing the lockdown directives, the mandate was passed to different Counties to apply stricter restrictions if they thought necessary.
Alameda authorities had said:
“Restoring all daily activities too soon risks a rapid spike in cases and would jeopardize the relative stability we’ve seen in our health and hospital system.”
It added that Tesla’s manufacturing plant in the area did not meet the criteria for ‘essential businesses’. Thus, it would have to wait until at least 1st June to resume activities as normal.
This did not appeal to Elon Musk. In recent times, he had been very vocal about his dislike for the lockdown orders. He had tweeted about freeing citizens and even once called the orders a fascist one.
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However, this time, He threatened to do more than just rant on Twitter. In a Tweet, the Tesla boss mentioned a lawsuit and also called the interim health officer an ignorant person.
See his tweet here:
Tesla is filing a lawsuit against Alameda County immediately. The unelected & ignorant “Interim Health Officer” of Alameda is acting contrary to the Governor, the President, our Constitutional freedoms & just plain common sense!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 9, 2020
In addition, Musk said in another tweet that he would move the company’s headquarters out of California.
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
Currently, Tesla’s Gigafactory in California employs more than 10,000 workers, and losing it will be a massive blow for the state.
How Alameda County will react to this threat and pressures from higher up will be interesting to see.
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