Elon Musk refused to accept state aid for factory in Germany and tweeted that Tesla is against subsidies
The US based car manufacturing firm Tesla has withdrawn its application for government subsidies for its planned battery factory in Grunheide. The Chief Executive Officer ElonMusk has declared that the company does not support the notion of subsidies.
Tesla is letting down a possible state aid of more than 1.14 billion euros for its planned factory to produce electric vehicles batteries near Berlin. The European Union approved the proposal in January with state aid so as to reduce its imports from industry leader China.
A Tesla spokesperson stated, “Tesla has informed the Federal Ministry of Economics and the Brandenburg Ministry of Economics… it is withdrawing its IPCEI application for state funding for the battery factory in Grunheide.”
After the decision came out, the billionaire Musk also tweeted, “It has always been Tesla’s view that all subsidies should be eliminated, but that must include the massive subsidies for oil & gas.”
Almost 3 years ago, a Twitter account named Existential Comics criticized Elon Musk by tweeting, “He makes all his money from government subsidies and contracts, and by wildly exaggerating production to pump up stock prices.” And also said that the government has invested more in Tesla and SpaceX than the billionaire himself in another tweet.
In response to this, Elon Musk said that the claimed subsidies are about of $4.9 billion and at that time the combined market cap of Tesla & SpaceX was about $80B. So he asked the critic about what he think the rest $75 billion came from.
And now, after more than 3 years to this Twitter argument, Elon Musk tweeted today, “Combined Tesla+SpaceX market cap is now over $1.2T, which means “$4.9B” is less than 0.4% of combined company value.”
The criticism he faced for accepting government subsidies may be the reason for him opposing them now. Tesla is going to develop new kinds of batteries now and he wants the production of his first car factory in Europe to start this year but not with the help of state aid.
