Elon Musk rails against California’s ‘ignorant’ health officials, says he’s moving Tesla’s HQ to red state Texas

By Chris White

Tesla CEO Elon Musk suggested Saturday that he is suing a California county after “unelected & ignorant” health officials spoiled his plans to reopen over coronavirus concerns.

Musk criticized local California officials, saying that he is preparing to relocate to Texas or Nevada after Alameda County Public Health Department interim health officer Erica Pan said Friday that Tesla does not have the okay to reopen.

“Tesla is filing a lawsuit against Alameda County immediately,” Musk wrote on Twitter before condemning the county’s “unelected & ignorant” health care officials who he said are “acting contrary to the Governor, the President, our Constitutional freedoms & just plain common sense!”

Alameda County, where Tesla’s headquarters are based, “is still a bit stricter” on when businesses can open up, Pan told reporters during an online town hall meeting.

“We have not given the green light. We have been working with them looking at some of their safety plans. But no, we have not said that it is appropriate to move forward,” she said after being asked about Tesla in particular.

Musk was not impressed with Pan’s remarks.

“Frankly, this is the final straw,” he said in a following tweet. “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 [sic] on how Tesla is treated in the future. Tesla is the last carmaker left in CA.”

This is not the first time the tech tycoon has lashed out at officials over the coronavirus pandemic. Musk criticized government officials in April for instituting economic lockdowns, calling them “fascist” during an April first-quarter Tesla earnings call.

Stay-at-home orders were instituted throughout the country to slow the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 75,000 people in the United States.

Musk said during the call that people should be allowed to quarantine themselves if they wish, but added: “to say that they cannot leave their house, and they will be arrested if they do, this is fascist. This is not democratic. This is not freedom. Give people back their goddamn freedom.”

Meanwhile, California’s economy is falling off a proverbial cliff.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s stay-at-home orders in March forced non-essential businesses to close, prompting millions of Californians to file for unemployment. The Democrat’s administration is predicting that the state will hit 18% unemployment after registering a 3.9% unemployment rate at the start of 2020.

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Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/JD Lasica

3 thoughts on “Elon Musk rails against California’s ‘ignorant’ health officials, says he’s moving Tesla’s HQ to red state Texas

  1. Texas and Nevada are sooooo much more business-friendly than basket-case CALIPHONYA.
    I am surprised Musk waited this long to make the move.

    First he will move the headquarters, etc., and then he will close the Fremont plant, and move the production to Texas or Nevada.
    Caliphonya will lose thousands of high-paying DIRECT jobs and many thousands of INDIRECT jobs.
    Like the stupidity of closing low-cost producer, Vermont Yankee, times 10

    11% of the CA workforce consists of unskilled, uneducated, inexperienced, unhealthy, ILLEGAL aliens.
    They just walk across the OPEN/POROUS border.

    Dem/Progs are celebrating.
    They want the feds to pay for the social services of illegals.
    Illegals demand all sorts of social services, education, health, housing, guaranteed income, AKA welfare payment.

    All those services give illegals a standard of living well above from where they came.

  2. Elon…just some back channel info. you might find helpful. It’s beginning to look like we might be on the cusp of de-Bernie-zing ourselves somewhat up here in notheren Vt. We might be an attractive destination for your operation – think, iconic slops in the white season and gin clear plunge pools in the Green season. Maybe a mid mountain Vt. setting might be a good move for Tesla. Come visit.

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