As a Californian, I love Tesla and really hope they can keep their HQ in Bay Area and remain their Fremont factory as the ONLY car manufacturer making cars in the golden state! And to be honest, they are NOT just making cars, they are making the cars leading the whole world towards the much brighter future!
The story between Elon Musk and Alameda County’s public health department started 2 days ago and quickly turned known worldwide just by couple tweets from Elon.
Then a CA assemblywoman suddenly started a personal attack against Elon in a very rude and public way as she tweeted below three words.
I did not know about her and I guess same as lot of other Californian, since we are just too *busy* to care about politics:) esp. at state level. However, as an elected public figure, what she just did is NOT acceptable to me since A) Elon did not attack nor even mention her name in the initial tweet B) Use dirty words is in general bad, and very bad in such a public fashion, and super bad against another highly respected public figure.
Okay, let’s get into the key topic here — should and will Tesla leave California?
First, let’s check the facts and the logic about the key cause of this conflict between Tesla and Alameda County about reopening the factory
- Federal Level: Delegated to the States.
- State Level: CA Governor Newsom issued below new guideline which allows manufacturing to reopen with limited
“We are now in early Stage 2, where retail (curbside and delivery only), related logistics and manufacturing and essential businesses can open. The state is issuing guidance to help these workplaces reopen safely.”
Checklist for Manufacturing to reopen: https://covid19.ca.gov/pdf/checklist-manufacturing.pdf - County Level: Alameda county’s public health department issued below statement, very vague to be honest, no specifics (what are the areas Tesla’s reopening plan need to change), no timelines.
4. City Level: Fremont Mayor Lili Mei issued below statement supporting Tesla’s reopening per my read.
“As we have done for over a decade, the City is prepared to support Tesla as soon as they are able to resume automobile manufacturing operations and are committed to a thoughtful, balanced approach to this effort that remains safe for our Fremont community.”
My ask to both Tesla and Alameda county is the same — pls share more details on the areas of the disagreements, then I think the public can make much better sense out of the facts instead of the emotions.
I do think this story is such a symbolic one showing the tough dilemma and hard balance that every business, government, organization are forced to face directly by COVID-19 including conflicts between:
- Public Health vs. Economy
- Individual Freedom vs. Societal Responsibility
- Organizational choice vs. Regional risk
Last, no matter whether Tesla will move out of Alameda or California, as long as Elon remains as the CEO, it will keep leading the energy revolution with its beautiful and exciting cars! Especially COVID-19 had and will significantly slow down the pace of other major car makers’ already late execution of electrification.
