Elon Musk and Tesla fans are ramping up the pressure to get recognition from President Biden, who has had a clear problem acknowledging that Tesla is leading the A electrification of the auto industry in the United States. Almost 50,000 Tesla supporters have signed a petition, and someone has even bought an ad about it on Times Square.
The tension between the Biden administration and Musk and his fans has been growing for months now. The first major blow seems to have been the ceremony where President Biden signed a new executive order for 50% of new cars sold in the United States to be electric by 2030.
Tesla wasn’t invited, and both Musk and many Tesla fans took offense. However, the event was about the US automakers, like Ford and GM, committing to go 50% electric by 2030. Tesla is already all electric.
But then the Biden administration, influenced by the United Auto Worker union, pushed for reform of the electric vehicle tax credit to include an additional $4,500 credit per electric vehicle produced at a unionized factory.
Some Tesla fans saw this as an attack on Tesla since the company is the biggest US producer of electric vehicles, and its workforce is not unionized. Musk later called out Biden for “being controlled by unions.”
Things started to escalate from there when President Biden made the undoubtedly ridiculous statement that gave GM CEO Mary Barra credit for ‘electrifying the entire auto industry.’
Biden and his administration have since made several similar claims and appeared to have an issue even mentioning Tesla when it came to electric vehicles, despite the company being the biggest electric vehicle producer in the country and a big part of the administration’s plans to lower emissions.
It led Musk to tweet this last week:
Starts with a TEnds with an AESL in the middle
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 27, 2022
Since that tweet, Tesla fans have ramped up their effort to get the president to acknowledge Tesla. A fan even bought ad space in Times Square to promote Musk’s tweet (via /u/dappermarketer on Reddit):
Somoene going by ‘Poet From The Stars’ even started a petition on Change.org to have President Biden “acknowledge Tesla’s leadership in regards to electric vehicles.” Almost 50,000 people have signed the petition in just a few days.
Electrek’s Take
It’s pretty comical to be honest. Tesla is undeniably the leader in electric vehicles, especially in the United States, where over 60% of all electric vehicles have been made by the company. Not even mentioning Tesla in the conversation is ridiculous.
On the other side, I don’t know why Tesla fans care so much. It’s politics. Musk is a controversial individual, and the Biden administration clearly doesn’t want to associate with him. He literally advocated for the Senate not to pass the Build Back Better act. It’s not surprising that the administration would see him as the enemy in this political climate.
If they want to show it to Biden, Musk and Tesla should just focus on continuing to build the best electric vehicles they can in the highest volume possible. Biden and his administration won’t be able to ignore them at some point.
Keyword: Elon Musk and Tesla fans ramp up pressure for recognition from Biden with ad and 50,000 petition signatures