President Donald Trump says Elon Musk will build a new factory in the United States but it’s unclear if that’s true or not.
While speaking with CNBC at the ongoing World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump was asked to give his thoughts on Elon Musk.
The interview started with Trump praising Musk, saying “He’s also doing the rockets, he likes rockets, and he does good at rockets too by the way.” The U.S. president then pointed out that Tesla’s chief executive is one of the nation’s great geniuses and that these geniuses must be “protected.” Shortly after this, Trump added, “He’s going to be building a very big plant in the United States. He has to. Because we help him, so he has to help us.”
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The commander-in-chief is no stranger to making bold proclamations and this is one of them. For what it’s worth, Tesla already has three big plants in the U.S., namely its Fremont factory in California, the Gigafactory 1 in Nevada, and Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo, New York.
Car and Driver reached out to Tesla to see if there’s any truth about it building another large factory in the U.S. but has yet to hear back. The electric automaker has yet to state in public if it is indeed planning a new local factory. What we do know is that it will build a European Gigafactory near Berlin, Germany and recently started Model 3 production at its site in Shanghai, China.
While it could be that Trump knows something the rest of us don’t about Tesla’s local plans, it’s also possible he made up the claim on the spot. He could have also been referencing a factory Musk could build for one of his other companies like SpaceX.