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Elon Musk defies COVID-19 order and re-opens Tesla’s California factory

With Elon Musk and musician, Grimes, recently bringing a child into the world, you would think that would be the Tesla founder’s main priority at the moment. Unfortunately it is not, with Musk seemingly ready to be arrested for violating a Californian COVID-19 order by re-opening his Tesla factory in the region earlier this week.

Musk tweeted several times over weekend about his intention to do so, and finally followed through yesterday, noting that if anyone should be arrested at the facility, it should be him.

While we appreciate Musk’s desire to be a martyr, the fact of the matter is that his employees would also likely face some sort of disciplinary action for violating the COVID-19 order too, so let’s not go labelling the mercurial Tesla founder a hero just yet.

As The New York Times reports, Musk actually came quite close to being able to re-open the factory legally, with Tesla and Alameda county officials hashing out an agreement that could have seen the company go back into operation around 18th May.

That was, of course, before Elon Musk did what he does best, and filed a lawsuit against the county over the weekend, which seemingly stalled all negotiation efforts made up until that point.

As for the workers at said factory, up until now Tesla had placed them on furlough, before informing them on Monday that they can prepare to head back to the factory. Those who were uncomfortable doing so were allowed to stay home, but also forfeited any form of income at this time too. It therefore leaves those workers in a very precarious position.

For now it remains to be seen what will happen to Musk, his factory and its workers. Either way, the Tesla board and investors won’t exactly be pleased with recent developments during the COVID-19 pandemic.

If push comes to shove, it will be interesting to see if Musk and Tesla follow through with their earlier threat of moving the company’s operations elsewhere over the way things have been handled in recent weeks.

[Image – Photo by Afif Kusuma on Unsplash]

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