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The Biden government didn't invite Tesla to an official EV summit where Biden declared GM's Mary Barra as the pioneer of EVs when GM sold 28 EVs that quarter an

The Biden government didn't invite Tesla to an official EV summit where Biden declared GM's Mary Barra as the pioneer of EVs when GM sold 28 EVs that quarter and Tesla sold 200K+. WSJ later revealed the snub was because of union pressure after donating a lot to the Biden campaign. That's one of the reasons that Musk went down this path after having voted for Biden.

andsoitis 2y ago
> The Biden government didn't invite Tesla to an official EV summit where Biden declared GM's Mary Barra as the pioneer of EVs when GM sold 28 EVs that quarter and Tesla sold 200K+. The problem with that is while it triggered Musk, I don't know that it actually accomplished anything useful. Did it affect Musk financially? Or his reputation? Unless there's an impact that I'm aware of, I would classify the act as toothless or, more euphemistically, "not as effective as it could be".
- ivewonyoung 2y ago
  > I don't know that it actually accomplished anything useful It was a form of kickback to their big donor, the UAW, for a long time they were planning to exclude Tesla from EV subsidies and gave up on that plan only at the last minute. Then the govt came in with bags of money to try and neutralize the advantage of Tesla's supercharger network by building a bigger network with taxpayer funds. So that the supercharger network wouldn't be a competitive advantage over the UAW car companies who neglected building charging stations and EVs despite billions in profit every year.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    Tesla got a lot of that money. Many wanted to only give the money to union facilities, but because the Biden government was functional they dropped the stupid parts of their plans.
    - ivewonyoung 2y ago
      Tesla didn't get that money, people who bought EVs got an paid directly by the govt on them and for some reason picked Tesla at a higher rate than other car companies.
bryanlarsen 2y ago
The Biden government didn't invite Tesla to an summit on how to convert ICE manufacturing to EV. Why would they have?
- ivewonyoung 2y ago
  It was an EV summit, not about converting ICE to EVs. Even Biden's press secretary made it no secret that it was coz of unions(see quote below), as did a WSJ story after a couple of years quoting insider sources. Also Biden praised GM's Mary Barra as the pioneer of EVs, it was so bizarre, there's video. > White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked about Tesla’s absence at her briefing Thursday ahead of the event. > “Well, we of course welcome the efforts of automakers who recognize the potential of an electric vehicle future and support efforts that will help reach the President’s goal, and certainly Tesla is one of those companies,” Psaki said. “I would not expect this is the last time we talk about clean cars and the move towards electric vehicles, and we look forward to having a range of partners in that effort.” > Asked if Tesla being a nonunion company was the reason it wasn’t included Thursday, Psaki replied, “Well, these are the three largest employers of the United Auto Workers, so I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.”

andsoitis 2y ago

> The Biden government didn't invite Tesla to an official EV summit where Biden declared GM's Mary Barra as the pioneer of EVs when GM sold 28 EVs that quarter and Tesla sold 200K+. The problem with that is while it triggered Musk, I don't know that it actually accomplished anything useful. Did it affect Musk financially? Or his reputation? Unless there's an impact that I'm aware of, I would classify the act as toothless or, more euphemistically, "not as effective as it could be".

ivewonyoung 2y ago
> I don't know that it actually accomplished anything useful It was a form of kickback to their big donor, the UAW, for a long time they were planning to exclude Tesla from EV subsidies and gave up on that plan only at the last minute. Then the govt came in with bags of money to try and neutralize the advantage of Tesla's supercharger network by building a bigger network with taxpayer funds. So that the supercharger network wouldn't be a competitive advantage over the UAW car companies who neglected building charging stations and EVs despite billions in profit every year.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  Tesla got a lot of that money. Many wanted to only give the money to union facilities, but because the Biden government was functional they dropped the stupid parts of their plans.
  - ivewonyoung 2y ago
    Tesla didn't get that money, people who bought EVs got an paid directly by the govt on them and for some reason picked Tesla at a higher rate than other car companies.

bryanlarsen 2y ago

The Biden government didn't invite Tesla to an summit on how to convert ICE manufacturing to EV. Why would they have?

ivewonyoung 2y ago
It was an EV summit, not about converting ICE to EVs. Even Biden's press secretary made it no secret that it was coz of unions(see quote below), as did a WSJ story after a couple of years quoting insider sources. Also Biden praised GM's Mary Barra as the pioneer of EVs, it was so bizarre, there's video. > White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked about Tesla’s absence at her briefing Thursday ahead of the event. > “Well, we of course welcome the efforts of automakers who recognize the potential of an electric vehicle future and support efforts that will help reach the President’s goal, and certainly Tesla is one of those companies,” Psaki said. “I would not expect this is the last time we talk about clean cars and the move towards electric vehicles, and we look forward to having a range of partners in that effort.” > Asked if Tesla being a nonunion company was the reason it wasn’t included Thursday, Psaki replied, “Well, these are the three largest employers of the United Auto Workers, so I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.”