Washington: US President Joe Biden, when asked about Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s remarks about having a ‘super bad feeling’ about the economy, quipped that he wished Musk ‘lots of luck’ on his ‘trip to the moon’. Musk has made clear he’s no Biden fan and a report Friday from Reuters said he told Tesla executives he expressed pessimism about the US economy and wants to slash the electric auto maker’s workforce by 10%.
Musk wrote in an email to executives that he had a ‘super bad feeling’ about the economy and needed to cut about 10% of jobs at the electric carmaker, Reuters had reported on Friday. Biden, celebrating May jobs data that economists see as potentially indicating a healthy path forward for the post-pandemic economy, responded to Musk’s reported comment by pointing to growth among Tesla rivals.
‘Let me tell you, while Elon Musk is talking about that, Ford is increasing their investment overwhelmingly’, Biden said. ‘The former Chrysler corporation, Stellantis, they are also making similar investments in electric vehicles’, he added. ‘So, you know, lots of luck on his trip to the Moon’, Biden said of Musk, whose SpaceX has been picked by NASA to build the lander for a Moon trip.
Musk replied on Twitter: ‘Thanks Mr President!’ He included a link referencing NASA’s April 2021 award of a $2.9-billion contract to Musk’s space company SpaceX to build a spacecraft to bring astronauts to the moon.
Thanks Mr President!https://t.co/dCcTQLsJTp
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 3, 2022
Biden had just given a speech of his own touting higher-than-expected US job growth in May and rebuffing criticism of his handling of inflation. But he warned that job growth could slow in the coming months as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates to cool inflation. The president said that slower hiring represents a transition to stable growth rather than an omen for recession. ‘We aren’t likely to see the kind of blockbuster job reports month after month like we had over this past year’, he said, adding that ‘but that’s a good thing’, and that’s a ‘sign of a healthy economy’.
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