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Billionaire Elon Musk couldn’t resist jabbing at President Biden after he omitted any mention of Tesla from the portion of his “State of the Union” address dedicated to electric vehicle investments on Tuesday night.
Biden highlighted his push for more domestic manufacturing by noting Tesla’s rivals General Motors and Ford were investing a combined $18 billion to build out electric vehicle capacity at US facilities. The remarks irritated Musk, who has accused the White House of ignoring Tesla despite its leading position in the market.
“Nobody is watching the State of the Union,” Musk said in an email to CNBC.
Musk elaborated on his gripe in response to a tweet posted on Biden’s official Twitter account, which included the president’s quote about the Ford and GM investments in electric vehicle manufacturing.
“Tesla has created over 50,000 US jobs building electric vehicles & is investing more than double GM + Ford combined [fyi to person controlling this twitter],” Musk tweeted in response to the post.
Musk’s remarks were the latest sign of discord between himself and top officials in the Biden administration. The White House has invited other electric vehicle manufacturers to multiple events since Biden took office while snubbing Tesla – whose US factories aren’t unionized.
Some Biden advisers have purportedly warned against inviting Musk to the White House due to concerns that he would say something to embarrass the administration, CNBC reported. Musk denied that he would do anything of the sort if he received an invitation, telling the outlet the White House would have “nothing to worry about.”
But Musk has repeatedly criticized Biden and other White House officials for failing to mention Tesla during speeches or events touting its commitment to electric vehicle technology. Tesla sells more EVs than any other manufacturer and has a market valuation of nearly $900 billion.
The billionaire’s sharpest criticism of Biden came in January, when he referred to the president as a “damp [sock] puppet in human form” who was “treating the American public like fools” after he appeared at an event with the CEOS of GM and Ford.
Biden mentioned Tesla for the first, and so far only time, during a Feb. 8 speech. He referred to Tesla as “our nation’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer.”
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