The New York Times is pleading with Donald Trump to consult Elon Musk of Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) on his job creation agenda owing to the significant number of manufacturing jobs the latter has created in various business ventures. In the group of business executives the President-elect has named to champion his job creation program, one name that was notably absent was Elon Musk.
In the last 10 years, Musk has been credited with generating almost 35,000 jobs in the various businesses he has created or acquired, though the two most notable are not yet profitable and have only consumed capital. This includes Paypal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:PYPL), which is profitable; SpaceX, the rocket firm which is not; and Tesla, the electric automaker which is not either. In the near future, those figures are projected to go up as many of his business ventures continue to create jobs.
At present, the Tesla Gigafactory is being constructed in Reno, Nevada. The factory, which sits on a space measuring 5.5 million square feet is projected to create approximately 6,500 manufacturing jobs in four years. The completion of the plant will also see 95% of the parts that go into making a Tesla car being manufactured in the United States.
Climate change skeptics
Despite his achievements, Musk has however made himself an enemy of conservatives over his stance on climate change. For instance, a coal firm’s chief executive who is skeptical that human activity is behind climate change has branded Musk a fraud because he accepted subsidies from the federal government. Musk did hit hit back however.
“The real fraud going on is denial of climate science. As for ‘subsidies,’ Tesla gets pennies on the dollar vs coal. How about we both go to zero?” Musk tweeted in response to the allegations leveled against him by the coal executive.
Musk willing to engage
Complicating the matter is the fact that Musk has in the past admitted to not being a fan of Donald Trump. But when pressed on whether he would be willing to talk to the President-elect, Tesla’s Chief Executive declared that would be happy to.
Wednesday’s trading saw Tesla rise 3.93% to close at $193.15.
