News/Commentary

Elon Musk drops ‘classic’ response after Biden takes a dig at him during presser

June 3, 2022 | | Print Article

When Elon Musk speaks, the entire world leans in, so when the quirky billionaire said he has a “super bad feeling” about the U.S. economy and will be cutting roughly 10% of jobs at Tesla, even President Joe Biden was forced to respond.

During a rare moment during which the President was taking questions from the press, a reporter asked Biden what he thought of Musk’s alleged comments.

“Well, let me tell you, while Elon Musk was talking about that, Ford is increasing their investment overwhelmingly. I think Ford is increasing the investment in building new electric vehicles, 6,000 new employees — union employees I might add — in the midwest. The former Chrysler Corporation, Stellantis, they are also making similar investments in electric vehicles. Intel is adding 20,000 new jobs. They’re making computer chips.”

“So, um, you know, lot’s of luck on his trip to the moon,” Biden quipped.

The question came after a report from Reuters, which obtained an email Musk reportedly sent to his executives on Thursday with the words “pause all hiring worldwide” in the subject line.

In another email, Musk allegedly informed employees that Tesla would be “reducing salaried headcount by 10% as we have become overstaffed in many areas.”

“Note, this does not apply to anyone actually building cars, battery packs or installing solar,” he said. “Hourly headcount will increase.”

Two days prior to sending Thursday’s message, Musk told Tesla employees they needed to either get back to working a minimum of 40-hours a week in the main office or they are free to “pretend to work somewhere else.”

Musk has commented a lot recently, on both the risk of a recession and on Biden’s refusal to give Tesla its due as the President pushes the use of electric vehicles.

So it’s not surprising that Musk responded to the president’s “moon” comment with the understated snark many have come to love from the world’s richest man.

“Thanks Mr. President!” Musk tweeted back along with an article touting NASA’s selection of SpaceX to take astronauts back to the moon.

You could almost hear Twitter applauding.

“Gold,” tweeted one user, while another called the response “Classic.”

 

Others took aim at Biden, for what appeared to be a prepared response to the reporter’s question.

“He just happened to have a note card for this question?” a user asked.

“He pulled out the answer from his pocket, he knows the question’s being asked,” another noted.

“I find it more impressive he knew which pocket the note is in,” said yet another.

In the end, it was Musk for the Twitter win, because, as one user put it, “If this is a battle of wits, one party isn’t bringing any to the table.”

Melissa Fine
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