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PALTO ALTO, U.S. – Electric car maker Tesla will leave California and move its headquarters to another state, CEO Elon Musk said Saturday after local health officials refused to allow the company’s factory to reopen amid the coronavirus outbreak.
“Frankly, this is the final straw,” Musk said in a Twitter post.
“Tesla will now move its HQ and future programs to Texas / Nevada immediately,” he said, describing the company as “the last carmaker left” in California.
In a separate tweet, Musk said he would sue Alameda County, where the plant is located, saying officials there were acting against the U.S. Constitution, the governor and U.S. President Donald Trump.
The remarks come after Tesla halted production at its factory in Shanghai, which had been its only plant still in operation during the pandemic, in a move the company described as “normal” adjustment.
Tesla had made no official comment on Musk’s comments as of this report.
The Tesla factory is seen in Fremont, California.
© Reuters
Tesla’s auto factory in Fremont, California, once belonged to a joint-venture between Toyota Motor and General Motors. It was acquired by the electric car maker in 2010 and remains its only vehicle-assembly plant in the U.S.
Tesla was forced to halt production there in late March after the government of Alameda County deemed operations “non-essential.”
The automaker had been looking to restart the plant once California eased statewide restrictions on business activity Friday, but the county maintained a stricter level of coronavirus precautions.
The Fremont factory has an annual production capacity of about 490,000 vehicles and employed more than 10,000 people until its March stoppage. Tesla, which partners with Japan’s Panasonic on electric-vehicle batteries, is headquartered in nearby Palo Alto.
“If we even retain Fremont manufacturing activity at all, it will be [dependent] on how Tesla is treated in the future, “Musk said.
The CEO has retracted tweets before. In 2018, I have broached plans to take Nasdaq-listed Tesla private, only to backtrack less than three weeks later. The series of tweets prompted the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to charge Musk with securities fraud, a case that was later settled.
The terms of the settlement include pre-approval from Tesla for any tweets that could affect the company’s share price.
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