An open letter to Elon Musk:
In this season of giving, Congress certainly gave you a gift! The Republican representatives threw away legislation you asked them to oppose. The president-elect seconded your opposition, too.
But I wanted to alert you to some opposition you may encounter yourself.
In an open letter posted by 48hills last July, I proposed that you should not support Donald Trump for President because his climate change denial and favoritism of gas-guzzling transportation reduce the market for your electric cars.
Since then, Trump has said he likes Teslas; this could be due to my influence, or more likely due to yours. His favorable attitude toward Tesla was no doubt increased by your generous funding of the Republican Presidential campaign. (Trump still plans to “drill, baby, drill,” so I guess neither of us completely dissuaded him from gas-guzzling.)
In my previous letter I also questioned your relocation of X (formerly Twitter) from San Francisco to a site near Austin, Texas. Now I wonder whether you’re abandoning Texas, too. I read that you’ve been living part-time in Mar-a-Lago, dining with the president-elect and his other billionaire friends when you’re not in Washington, D.C., disapproving of the federal budget.
No doubt the dinner-table discussions at Mar-a-Lago are lively. Trump has been known to show his guests top-secret maps and share international phone calls, features with which San Francisco’s restaurants can’t compete. I don’t know if you and he talk about the federal budget over dessert, but you certainly didn’t discuss one item, a bill rider you singlehandedly quashed by objecting online, prompting President-elect Trump to agree with you 13 hours later and ask his supporters not to vote for it.
According to American Prospect writer David Dayen, you vetoed the budget bill because one of its clauses would have limited your ability to operate a factory in China. Dayen wrote: “A Tesla Gigafactory in Shanghai opened in 2019; maybe a quarter of the company’s revenue comes from China. Musk has endorsed building a second Tesla factory in China,” and he may want battery and solar panel factories there in the future.
The federal budget rider would have limited US tech investment, especially “sensitive” American technology, in China, so it makes perfect sense that you objected. It’s quite understandable that your friend Donald seconded your objection, too, after a slight delay to figure out what you wanted; he owes you. And many Republicans in Congress owe him something, if they don’t want to run against a more loyal Trump Republican in a primary.
But I wonder how long this will last. Is there a ceiling on Trump’s debt to Elon Musk?
Prior to re-election, candidate Donald promised to wage a tariff war on Beijing, and favor products made in the United States, part of his nativist “America First” program almost inseparable from his anti-immigration tirades. You may need to have Chinese Tesla products exempted from the tariff, or sold only outside the US. And then there is the Mexican Tesla factory scheduled to be built; will its products be exempt from a tariff, too?
I know you are something of an internationalist, an entrepreneur who sees the whole world (as well as the planet Mars) as his prospective market. But if you want to stay influential inside the White House, and quash more of those tech-restricting bills, and keep all your Space X government contracts, some adjustments in your planning may be necessary.
You might want to consider moving back to San Francisco, where you could prove you respect “America First” by opening a small, tariff-free plant around Union Square, which has some spaces available. Many voters here don’t object to men of wealth governing them, judging from the last mayoral race. I suspect our new mayor would be delighted to dine with you.
San Francisco is a city where Teslas and other electric cars can be seen everywhere; we even let some of the cars drive themselves. It is far from the halls of Congress; but that might be just where you want to be in a little while. You may need a retreat once the man who rules Mar-a-Lago realizes your campaign funds are no longer needed.
Joel Schechter is the author of several books on satire.
