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The View | Joe Biden cannot ignore Tesla and Elon Musk if he is serious about electric vehicles and climate change
- The US president has been pushing the electric vehicle transition without the biggest EV player, Tesla
- While it is true that rich Americans like the Tesla CEO are getting richer, blaming Musk for inequality is not the answer. Instead, Biden must work with him
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Last year, President Joe Biden set a goal for the United States’ transition to electric vehicles, while executives from carmakers General Motors and Ford joined him at the White House. Just last month, he met them at the White House again.
Elon Musk, chief executive of electric carmaker Tesla and the only industrialist among Forbes’ 15 richest Americans, has never been invited. Instead, under his Build Back Better plan, Biden proposed additional incentives for consumers to purchase electric vehicles made with union labour. He also said that “Detroit is leading the world in electric vehicles”.
As a researcher focusing on global EV deployment, I highlighted California’s clean vehicle policies and Tesla’s success in a 2019 op-ed in the Post.
Since then, Tesla’s stock price has increased more than tenfold. Today, I am asking Biden to please listen to thousands of petitioning Tesla fans and meet Musk.
To say that Musk is a modern-day Henry Ford is an understatement. In 2021, Tesla’s Model 3 was the top-selling EV in the world, while its Model Y came third.
In China, Tesla had the second- and third-bestselling EVs, only outsold by a microcar that costs about one tenth of a Model 3. In Europe, the Tesla Model 3 was the annual bestseller for the second time in 2021. It was the first midsize saloon in decades to beat the three German premium auto brands in this category.
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