Elon Musk meets with Biden officials to discuss EV production

Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk met two top officials in President Joe Biden’s administration on Friday in Washington to discuss how the car maker and the Democratic president could work together to advance electric vehicle production and speed electrification of US vehicle networks.

Musk met John Podesta, a Democratic stalwart who serves as senior adviser to the president for clean energy innovation, and Mitch Landrieu, who oversees infrastructure spending, a White House spokesperson told Reuters.

“John Podesta and Mitch Landrieu met with Elon Musk to discuss shared goals around electrification and how the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act can advance electric vehicle production and charging as well as the broader cause of electrification,” the White House spokesperson said.

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 building that houses both Tesla’s Washington lobbying operation and the Center for American Progress, the think tank Podesta founded. Landrieu and Podesta left about half an hour later and did not answer questions.

Musk left about 45 minutes after Podesta and Landrieu. He too ignored questions from a Reuters reporter.

Biden, Musk tensions

Relations have often seemed antagonistic between Biden, who has pushed for companies to use union labor, and Musk, who has pushed to keep unions out of his factories.

Musk called Biden “a damp sock puppet in human form” last year after Biden highlighted EV production by GM and Ford in a tweet but left out Tesla.

Biden only publicly acknowledged the role of Tesla in US electric vehicle manufacturing over a year after taking office, after Musk repeatedly complained about being ignored.

In June, Biden compared Tesla unfavorably to Ford and sarcastically wished Musk “lots of luck” on his “trip to the moon” after the billionaire expressed reservations about the economy.

Still, Musk has long-standing important relationships with the government, and those have continued under the Biden administration.

Tesla has benefited from tax subsidies given to buyers of its electric vehicles while SpaceX, Musk’s rocket company, has contracts worth billions of dollars to deliver astronauts and cargo to and from the International Space Station, and to build a moon lander.

US consumers who bought Teslas became eligible again this month for up to $7,500 in consumer tax credits, 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 United States.

The law imposes requirements that EVs receiving the tax credits must be North American-made. There are also caps on vehicle prices and income for buyers who are eligible for the credits.

The law also sets new battery sourcing restrictions expected to take effect in March. It also includes new US battery production credits that Musk said earlier this week could have significant benefits to the company.