Tech billionaire Elon Musk has taken an aim at US President Joe Biden again for ignoring his electric car-making venture, Tesla, in his State of the Union address on Tuesday. The US President praised Ford and General Motors during the address for investing in the country to build electric vehicles and creating local jobs. Mr Musk tweeted an “FYI” for people “controlling” the US President's Twitter handle and gave out Tesla's numbers.
Mr Biden had lauded Ford for investing $11 billion to build electric vehicles and creating 11,000 jobs across the US. He then highlighted GM's plan for making the “largest investment in its history” — $7 billion to “build electric vehicles, creating 4,000 jobs in Michigan.”
Ford is investing $11B to build electric vehicles—creating 11,000 jobs across the country.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) March 2, 2022
GM is making the largest investment in its history—$7B to build electric vehicles, creating 4,000 jobs in Michigan.
Mr Musk, who has previously, too, accused the US President of ignoring Tesla, an electric automaker giant, when talking about the future of green mobility in the US, replied to the tweet.
He said that Tesla has created over 50,000 local jobs and the company was investing more than double of what GM and Ford were investing together. This, he added, was an “fyi” to the person controlling this (President Biden's) Twitter account.
Tesla has created over 50,000 US jobs building electric vehicles & is investing more than double GM + Ford combined
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 2, 2022
[fyi to person controlling this twitter]
Mr Musk and Mr Biden have a long-running feud over what the entrepreneur alleges is the US President's reluctance to acknowledge Tesla's contributions to the country's economy. After repeated complaints by Mr Musk, the US President mentioned Tesla during a speech in February 2022. But it's not clear though why he left Tesla out of his State of the Union address.
In January 2022, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, criticised the US President for not inviting him to a White House meeting for top business leaders, and even went on to call him a “damp sock puppet in human form”.
Biden is a damp ???? puppet in human form
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 27, 2022
Before that, in September 2021, after his private spaceship had completed a historic trip as the first all-civilian flying crew, Mr Musk had taken a shot at the US President. He was responding to a user on Twitter who asked about Mr Biden. The user said that the US President had refused to even recognise the four newest American astronauts, and sought Mr Musk's theory on it.
Mr Musk had a scathing reply to that. “He's still sleeping,” tweeted Mr Musk.
He's still sleeping
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 19, 2021
In January 2022, Tesla stated that the company had “achieved production of more than 3,05,000 vehicles and deliveries of over 3,08,000 vehicles” in the fourth quarter of 2021.
