Whatever you do, don’t eve accuse Elon Musk of using Tesla to take advantage of government subsidies just to make some money. Musk took to Twitter this morning to respond to criticism from investors in the week who were shorting Tesla’s stock.
The following Twitter saga came after Musk tweeted an article by Investopedia saying that Tesla is the most shorted company in the US, which stated that the short interest in Tesla totals $10.4 billion:
These guys want us to die so bad they can taste it
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 8, 2017
Today, Musk once again took to Twitter to defend his company, and also give some insight to why he started Tesla in the first place:
Few people know that we started Tesla when GM forcibly recalled all electric cars from customers in 2003 & then crushed them in a junkyard
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 9, 2017
They was done against the will of their owners, who held a candlelight vigil all night to protest the death of their cars
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 9, 2017
Since big car companies were killing their EV programs, the only chance was to create an EV company, even tho it was almost certain to fail
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 9, 2017
Nothing to do w govt incentives or making money. Thought 90% prob of losing it all (almost did many times), but it was the only chance.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 9, 2017
Musk referenced the EV1 electric car which was recalled by General Motors in the early 2000s. The story of the EV1 was documented in the movie “Who Killed the Electric Car?”
SOURCE | CNBC