Elon Musk and President Trump are on the same side of the debate over reopening America: both want it to happen, as soon as possible. They're also both billionaires who, throughout the pandemic, have repeatedly made comments denying the severity of the coronavirus, and been blatantly, wildly inaccurate with their predictions about its virality.
Tesla's founder, Elon Musk, has publicly pushed to reopen the company's manufacturing facility in Alameda County, California. Over the past few days, he's been vocal on Twitter about his issue with being told to keep his factories closed. It's an incendiary issue given that the always-divisive Donald Trump and Musk himself have flip-flopped on their thoughts about the virus multiple times in recent months. Elon Musk was even predicting in March that cases would "be negligible" by the end of April, which basically couldn't have been more wrong. Despite that bad call, he's pushing strongly in the direction of reopening, even threatening to move Tesla to another state to avoid restrictions it faces in California.
As it stands, medical professionals are advising a limited, procedural process of getting people back to work, while also stressing the importance of avoiding a second outbreak. Reports, like this one from CNBC, indicate that some states in the reopening process have shown an uptick in confirmed coronavirus cases, and some have not. However most states that have opened nonessential businesses did so recently, and the virus takes days to reveal symptoms. Furthermore, testing itself takes several days or even weeks to produce a result, which means no one will be able to say for certain if the ending of social distancing is premature for at least another two weeks.
Elon Musk Has One Great Point About Reopening Tesla
It's easy to argue that Elon Musk has lots of vested interests and financial motivations for wanting Tesla to reopen. There are the obvious financial reasons, but there's also the attention he gains for being so "anti-science" about this entire issue, and he seems to love attention. However, his claims that restrictions against Tesla are unjust could be more than a publicity stunt.
The state of California is allowing manufacturing facilities to reopen. They fall within a small category of businesses the state's governor has approved. Alameda County, however, has a more strict standard which would keep many nonessential, indoor businesses closed. The local government suggested that when state and local restrictions are at odds, the more strict ruling wins. Alameda County's supervisor says Elon Musk was informed of a plan to reopen facilities on Monday, May 18th, which is the same day the other major automotive manufacturers will resume operation, according to Wired.
Tesla has released a publicly-accessible set of guidelines for how it'll operate now that it's reopened. Per the document, the company is planning to screen employees, will provide personal protective equipment to some employees (not all), and emphasizes maintaining social distancing while working. In short, it's not perfect, but it probably resembles the same rules most factories will follow. To that end, it doesn't seem that Tesla will be any less safe having opened this week than the other companies' facilities will be opening on the 18th.
This is an understandably contentious issue since tracking the virus is next to impossible given America's treatment of the pandemic. It's easy, and perhaps justifiable to question the motives of people like Trump and Musk who appear to prioritize financial gain over human safety. This time, though, the latter appears to have a point. Regardless of the issues between Elon Musk and Alameda County officials, Tesla would be open barring a technicality. If reopening larger facilities with more employees would be fine a few days from now, it's hard to argue that Tesla opening slightly earlier is a bigger threat to public health. At the same time, rules are rules for a reason, and it's clear from this situation that following them would have only delayed reopening Tesla for a handful of days.