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- Kamala Harris says Biden made a "mistake" in not inviting Musk to the White House in 2021.Musk was excluded from an event highlighting electric vehicles over his anti-union stance.She said it didn't "make sense" for the "biggest player in the field" to not be there.
If Kamala Harris had her way, Elon Musk wouldn't have been snubbed by the Biden administration in 2021.
In her new book, "107 Days," the former vice president writes that she believes President Joe Biden "made a mistake" in not inviting the Tesla CEO to a White House event promoting the administration's electric vehicle policy in 2021.
Harris, who writes that Teslas were "then the world's most innovative and successful electric cars," said she shared her view with the president's team.
"As president of the United States, if you are convening the nation's manufacturers of electric vehicles and the biggest player in the field is not there, it simply doesn't make sense," Harris writes. "Musk never forgave it."
Harris said that Biden was "sending a message about Musk's anti-union stance." Musk has long been critical of unionization efforts, and Biden was close with the United Auto Workers. Other companies that manufacture EVs, including Ford and General Motors, were invited.
A spokesperson for Biden declined to comment on the book. Musk did not respond to a request for comment.
The former vice president also writes in the book that Musk "set off my spidey senses long before his MAGAfaction and his endorsement of Trump," owing to his business practices at Tesla and his move to Texas in 2021.
And she writes that at an event in San Francisco in August 2021, she told a top Silicon Valley donor that she was "concerned about Musk."
By that point, Musk had endorsed Trump and had begun pouring millions of dollars into a super PAC supporting him and other Republicans.
"I wanted reassurance that the tech people who supported democracy were putting resources into combating mis- and disinformation," Harris writes. "We needed a counterforce to whatever might be brewing, and I knew that the campaign I'd inherited didn't have the skill set or the resources for it."
