It would be fair to say that there’s no love lost between the conservatives and Tesla’s founder and CEO, Elon Musk.
In fact, Musk has been constantly attacked by right-wing groups as well as individuals, who accuse him of funding his business with American taxpayers’ money – or worse.
One of the haters, Laura Ingraham, heads the Citizens for the Republic group, which has launched a “Stop Elon Musk From Failing Again” campaign and is actually fairly close to new President-elect Donald Trump, as she is one of the candidates for the White House Press Secretary position.
Musk himself is no fan of Trump, either, but when New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin suggested that the next U.S. President should include Tesla’s owner among the people that will advise him on how to reinvigorate the economy and create new jobs, he had a surprise reply.
“I’d be happy to talk to Trump”, Musk emailed Sorkin on Monday.
Moreover, during a shareholders meeting, he tackled the issue of federal incentives, which is one of the accusations thrown at him by his critics: “Ironically, if all incentives and subsidies were removed for Tesla, Tesla’s competitive position would increase, not decrease. We do believe there should be government incentives for electric vehicles, but we believe they should be there for the good of the industry and to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport, not because Tesla needs them.”
