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Tesla CEO Elon Musk Joins President Trump's New Manufacturing Council (electrek.co)

Posted by BeauHD on from the share-a-common-interest dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: Tesla CEO Elon Musk was already on President Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum, but the White House announced today that he will also be joining the administration's new manufacturing council, a private sector group that advises the U.S. secretary of commerce. He headed a meeting on Monday at the White House. Musk was present along with several other industry leaders who are now also formally joining the manufacturing council. CNBC reports: "The group of business leaders includes Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk and chief executives of large American companies like Ford, Dow Chemical, General Electric, Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Richard Trumka, president of the labor federation AFL-CIO, will also give advice." As we recently reported, while Musk's mission to accelerate the advent of renewable energy might seem at odd with Trump's plan to unlock fossil fuel reserve, but Musk is betting that job creation is more important to the new President than simply satisfying the oil industry. If Trump wants to be the champion of job creation and Tesla shows that renewables create a lot of jobs, then their interests are aligned. Tesla currently employs over 30,000 people, more than 25,000 of which are in the U.S. The company wants to add over 3,000 manufacturing jobs at its factory in Fremont, California, 1,000 at its solar panel factory in Buffalo, New York, and over to 6,500 at the Gigafactory in Nevada.

5 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. I feel conflicted about this by JoshuaZ · · Score: 3, Interesting

    On the one hand, Trump is so terribly awful that any sort of support of him is problematic and dangerous. It risks becoming swept up in his complete disregard for facts or decency. On the other hand, having a few people involved like Musk are very sane and wealthy enough that Trump will listen to them (wealth being apparently one of the very few things he cares about), and might be positive moderating influences.

  2. Posts here are gonna be hilarious! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Seeing the heads explode for all the deranged Trump haters who also are Elon fanbois - both very common /. denizens.

    Oh, the hilarity!

  3. Re:Phrases by nadaou · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think it's more a case of Musk running a number of companies which are extremely vulnerable to the whims of the federal government, especially SpaceX, and he is acting to protect those. As to his personal beliefs and how hard he may have bite his tounge along the way, I've no idea.

    --
    ~.~
    I'm a peripheral visionary.
  4. What do you expect Musk to do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    This is a guy who has no problem wielding the power of the presidency against companies that rub him the wrong way. It's a hostage situation, not a negotiation.

  5. 30,000 jobs at tesla alone?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Holy shit! Tesla alone employs almost as much people as 20% of the entire oil and gas extraction workforce!!!

    https://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag211.htm