Tesla CEO Elon Musk met in Washington on Friday with two top officials in the administration of President Joe Biden to debate how the automaker and the Democratic president could work together to speed up the production of electric vehicles and speed up the electrification of the U.S. vehicle network.
Musk met with John Podesta, a Democratic supporter who’s the president’s senior adviser on clean energy innovation, and Mitch Landrieu, who oversees infrastructure spending, a White House spokesman told Reuters.
“John Podesta and Mitch Landrieu met with Elon Musk to debate the common goals of electrification and the way the bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and the Inflation Reduction Bill could speed up the production and charging of electric vehicles, and the broader reason for electrification” – said a White House spokesman.
Musk responded on Twitter to a link to an earlier version of this story with “True.”
A Reuters witness on Friday spotted Podesta, Landrieu and Musk entering a downtown constructing that houses each Tesla’s Washington lobby and the Center for American Progress, a think tank founded by Podesta. Landrieu and Podesta left about half an hour later and didn’t answer questions.
Musk left about 45 minutes after Podesta and Landrieu. He also ignored the Reuters reporter’s questions.
Biden, Musk’s tensions
The connection often seemed antagonistic between Biden, who pushed for firms to make use of union labor, and Musk, who pushed for unions to remain out of their factories.
Musk called Biden a “moist puppet in human form” last 12 months after Biden highlighted GM and Ford’s production of electric vehicles in a tweet but omitted Tesla.
Biden didn’t publicly acknowledge Tesla’s role in producing electric vehicles in the US until greater than a 12 months after taking office, after Musk repeatedly complained that he was being ignored.
In June, Biden unfavorably compared Tesla to Ford and sarcastically wished Musk “a lot of luck” on his “trip to the moon” after the billionaire expressed reservations concerning the economy.
Despite this, Musk has long had a vital relationship with the federal government, which has continued under Biden.
Tesla has enjoyed tax breaks given to buyers of its electric vehicles, while Musk’s rocket company SpaceX has billions of dollars value of contracts to deliver astronauts and cargo to and from the International Space Station and construct a lunar lander.
U.S. consumers who bought Teslas were again eligible for $7,500 in consumer tax credits this month, under the $430 billion Inflation Reduction Act passed last August. An earlier tax credit for Tesla buyers expired after the automaker sold its first 200,000 vehicles in the US.
The law requires electric vehicles receiving tax credits to be made in North America. There are also vehicle price and income limits for buyers who qualify for credits.
The law also sets out latest restrictions on battery procurement, that are expected to come back into effect in March. This also includes latest US battery production credits, which Musk said earlier this week could bring significant advantages to the corporate.