By Hank Berrien
Photo: Elon Musk - By Yasin
Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Musk has been harshly critical of
California's lockdown policies
Speaking in an interview on Tuesday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk
revealed he has left California and moved to Texas.
Musk, who has had more than one home in
Los Angeles and one
in the Bay Area, made the announcement at the The Wall Street Journal’s CEO
Council annual summit in an interview with editor-in-chief Matt Murray.
Musk’s move comes after months of him openly criticizing
the state of California’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the end of
April, speaking on a Tesla earnings call on Wednesday, Musk ramped up his
rhetoric about shelter-in-place orders around the nation, calling them
“fascist.” Musk stated, according to The
Verge.
“We are a bit worried about not being able to
resume production in the Bay Area, and that should be identified as a serious
risk,” said Musk. “The expansion of shelter-in-place, or as we
call it, forcibly imprisoning people in their homes, against all their
constitutional rights, is, in my opinion, breaking people’s freedoms in
ways that are horrible and wrong, and not why people came to America and built
this country. What the f***!”
He continued: “If somebody wants to stay in the house
that’s great. They should be allowed to stay in the house and they should not
be compelled to leave. But to say that they cannot leave their house and they
will be arrested if they do… this is fascist. This is not democratic. This is
not freedom. Give people back their godd*mn freedom … Everything people have worked
for all their lives is being destroyed in real time. I think the people are
going to be very angry about this and are very angry.”
The night before, Musk issued a series
of tweets targeting the lockdowns around the country, stating, “Give people
their freedom back!” in response to a Wall Street Journal opinion piece asking
whether the lockdown policy saved lives. “Bravo Texas!” he tweeted in response
to the news that Texas was reopening for business, and finally, a bluntly
stated, all-caps, “FREE AMERICA NOW.”
In May Musk threatened to move from California after
shelter-in-place orders forced him to shut down his sole car factory in the
United States. In mid-May he gave an indication of how fed-up he was with
the leftist governance of his home state of California, apparently urging
followers on Twitter to join the conservatives of America as he tweeted
succinctly, “Take the red pill.”
The Journal
noted, “The auto executive later filed a lawsuit against Alameda County,
home of the Tesla factory, and defied
local authorities by proceeding to reopen the plant, daring them to arrest
him. The county eventually blessed the plant’s reopening and didn’t pursue an
arrest.”
In October, Musk filed paperwork transferring
his personal foundation from California to Austin, Texas,
according to local records. Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or
SpaceX, has has operations in Texas.
__________
The Daily Wire is one of America’s
fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for
news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by
becoming a member.
