Biotech entrepreneur and US Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy lambed Tesla Inc.‘S TSLA “Masterplan 3” in a tweet on Sunday. Ramaswamy’s tweet caught the attention of the automaker’s CEO, Elon Musk.
What happened: Ramaswamy shared a post from Tesla Asia that included a photo of the Tesla Megafactory signing ceremony in Shanghai, China.
Ramaswamy slammed Tesla and Musk for “doubling down” on the Chinese Communist Party and the country’s president. Xi Jinping.
He also criticized subsidies aimed at the spread of electric vehicles, calling them “one of many small pawns” for the “climate cult”.
Musk countered that Ramaswamy was “wrong on many levels.” He said the company is rapidly ramping up production in Texas, California and Nevada.
“Our competitors need subsidies, not us. That means if competitors get subsidies, Tesla should get them too,” Musk said.
The Tesla CEO added, “Tesla’s competitive position would improve if all subsidies ended.”
Why it matters: While Musk addressed the subsidy portion of Ramaswamy’s tweet, he did not comment on the Chinese leadership or the country in his response.
Notably, Ramaswamy’s criticism came over Easter weekend, when Musk did Rumored to visit China.
Last year Musk had fought with well-known historians Ruth Ben Ghiat about subsidies. He said Ben-Ghiat “kept up propaganda invented by the oil and gas industry.”
Earlier in 2020, Musk tweeted that Tesla received the “least” subsidy of any automaker in the US
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