Elon Musk threatens to move Tesla HQ somewhere less concerned with worker safety
Elon Musk is sick and tired of all these rules meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus, and you'd better believe the innovator is going to do something about it. Specifically, that something would be threatening to move Tesla headquarters somewhere like Texas. Or maybe Nevada.
The Tesla CEO had planned to reopen his Fremont, California, plant Friday, only to be told by Alameda County that, no, the local shelter-in-place order remains in effect and that he will have to wait until at least June 1. Local health officials, it seems, don't consider Musk's business essential.
"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," the Los Angeles Times reports Alameda County officials as stating.
Musk, who has been engaged in a weeks-long tantrum in an apparent effort to pressure Alameda officials into allowing him to reopen his plant, appears to have finally snapped. In a series of early Saturday morning tweets he claimed he'd had enough of all these precautions.
"Frankly, this is the final straw," wrote the man with a penchant for possibly dangerous coronavirus-related misinformation. "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."
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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, reports Austin's NPR affiliate KUT, gave the go-ahead for hair and tanning salons to reopen as of yesterday. Nonessential manufacturers, which we imagine Tesla would count as, can reopen May 18.
Musk kicked off his latest rant against Alameda County — which has been praised for its early and decisive action to stop the spread of the coronavirus — by claiming that an "unelected & ignorant 'Interim Health Officer' of Alameda is acting contrary to the Governor, the President, our Constitutional freedoms & just plain common sense!"
When one a Twitter account associated with a Tesla owners club asked how they could help, Musk told them to voice their disagreement with the county.
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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of May 7 there have been 1,961 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 70 coronavirus-caused deaths in Alameda County.
Mashable did not immediately receive a request for comment from Tesla, but we'll update this post if we hear back.
UPDATE: May 10, 2020, 4:18 p.m. EDT Tesla published a statement on its website explaining its so-called "restart plan" and how it came to the decision. It concludes by saying that "the County’s position left us no choice but to take legal action to ensure that Tesla and its employees can get back to work. We filed a lawsuit on May 9 asking the court to invalidate the County Orders, to the extent the County claims they prevent Tesla from resuming operations."
