As the top Twitter employee, Elon Musk has made comparatively little appearance this year – a relief for Tesla friends and shareholders who feared that he could be permanently distracted by the new part-time job and harm the electric car brand with it. However, the potential increased focus on Tesla doesn’t mean that Musk isn’t still extremely busy: In the past week alone, he’s been active on at least four fronts in a row and has flown several times across the United States.
From Trial to Gigafactory Announcement
Last Tuesday, Musk ended three days of questioning in a trial in San Francisco initiated by Tesla shareholders. They are demanding compensation for losses they suffered after the CEO hinted on Twitter in August 2018 that he would buy Tesla from the stock market and canceled it shortly afterwards. Musk used the interrogation to restate his then Twitter statement “funding secured” as true, although the judge had previously ruled it misleading and irresponsible (“reckless”).
The survey didn’t seem to bring any really new insights – and how the news agency Bloomberg understood, Musk then flew on. On Tuesday, he and the state governor spoke to workers at the Tesla Gigafactory in Nevada (see photo above). With billions in new investments, it should become a much more important location. In addition to the current production of batteries in the Panasonic part, rechargeable batteries and drives, according to Musk, 100 gigawatt hours of their own 4680 batteries per year and the Tesla Semi will initially be built there.
Musk modestly dismissed praise from the governor for his achievements for Nevada at the announcement at the Gigafactory, which appeared to be media-free, saying it should instead be addressed to workers. In part, the event also serves to recruit staff for the location, he had told them beforehand and asked them to help with it. In addition to being an indirect Tesla spokesman, the CEO was also active as a top recruiter in Nevada on Tuesday.
Tesla and Twitter talks in Washington
On Wednesday, Musk flew, according to his (now 24-hour delayed) Jet Tracker on Twitter from Nevada back to Oakland near San Francisco. It was probably from there that he took part in the telephone conference on Tesla’s Q4 2022 business figures in the US afternoon, in which he predicted up to 2 million of his own electric car sales this year.
A day later, according to his tracker, Musk’s jet landed at Dulles Airport near the US capital Washington, and according to Bloomberg he was also there on Tesla matters. The agency reports that he made several visits to politicians on Thursday and Friday. Musk apparently took both sides of the manageable party spectrum into account: He is said to have met the speaker of the House of Representatives and other high-ranking members of the Republicans as well as representatives of the Democratic Party and the Biden government with responsibility for electric cars.
Unlike on Twitter, Musk presented himself in Washington as a politically adept CEO who knows how to speak to both sides, Bloomberg writes. A spokeswoman for the president then explained that the meetings with his officials were important – without mentioning the names Tesla or Musk, as seems to be a kind of habit in the White House. The CEO is obviously not deterred by this. And while Washington is said to have been partly about Twitter topics, the next day his jet was registered again in Oakland and on Sunday in Austin in the state of Texas, close to the Tesla Gigafactory there.
