Last week, President Biden met with Marry Barra of General Motors and Jim Farley from Ford and ended up praising Barra for GM’s contribution to his plan Build Back Better. The video included in the tweet, available at the bottom of the page, shows the two talking about plans to go fully electric and, in the process, create more jobs for Americans.
The meeting did not just exclude a representative for Tesla, but even mentions of the company, which seems ironic: Biden is praising GM and Ford as “EV leaders” but Tesla is, for the time being, the undisputed leader in terms of sales. Musk is taking his frustration over it out on Twitter.
Musk started by pointing out the glaring omission on Biden’s part: it starts with a T, ends in A, and has ESL in the middle, he writes in one tweet. He continued with the open criticism in replies and ended up calling Biden a “damp sock puppet in human form,” before saying there was an unexplained reason for which the President kept ignoring Tesla.
Musk also retweeted a message of support for a currently-very popular Change.org petition, which urges the President to “do the right thing and acknowledge Tesla for its hard work in making EVs a possibility for Americans,” and to stop “manipulating” the public into believing Ford and GM are leaders in this respect. As of the time of press, the petition has almost 28,000 signatures and is well on its way to becoming one of the most signed petitions on the platform. Meaning, Musk is not alone in seeing this.
Of course, Biden’s obvious blind spot when it comes to Tesla (or SpaceX, for that matter) is a political move. Tesla is not unionized and, to paraphrase Musk, the President is punishing the company for it by excluding it from any kind of official discussion or public acknowledgment.
For reasons unknown, @potus is unable to say the word “Tesla” https://t.co/dcBNowOgKA
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 30, 2022
I meant it when I said the future was going to be made right here in America. Companies like GM and Ford are building more electric vehicles here at home than ever before. pic.twitter.com/5E3ecA93MR
— President Biden (@POTUS) January 27, 2022
????
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 27, 2022
Biden is a damp ???? puppet in human form
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 27, 2022