Elon Musk on Thursday rejected the weight of Texas abortion law after Gov. Greg Abbott said Tesla and SpaceX CEO supported his state’s “social policies” after the harsh measure was implemented. restrictive.
“Overall, I think the government should rarely impose its will on the people, and in doing so, it should aspire to maximize their cumulative happiness,” Musk told CNBC in a tweet.
“That said, I’d rather stay out of politics,” said Musk, whose companies and foundations are growing their operations in Texas.
Advocates and providers of abortion rights say the law effectively overrides the precedent of abortion protections established under Roe v. Wade in 1973. President Joe Biden and others in his administration, as well as the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, have vowed to take action after the Supreme Court refused to prevent the law from coming into force.
Earlier Thursday, Abbott told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” that the new law and other politically divisive social laws will not make their status less attractive to businesses or individuals.
“It’s understandable that there are a lot of companies and a lot of Americans who like the social positions that the state of Texas takes,” Abbott said.
“This is not slowing down companies arriving in the state of Texas at all. In fact, it is accelerating the process of companies arriving in Texas,” Abbott said.
He added that Musk “had to leave California because of some of the social policies in California, and Elon constantly tells me that he likes social policies in the state of Texas.”
Musk personally moved to Texas from California last year, which could save him billions of dollars in taxes. He had not shared his thoughts on the “heartbeat” abortion law, which also authorizes private citizens to sue anyone who “helps and incites” most abortions.
Historically, Musk has shown little reluctance to intervene in political matters.
For example, in early 2020, in the midst of the first waves of the pandemic, Musk attacked the government’s stay orders at his home, calling them “fascists” in a bewilderment at Tesla’s Q1 2020 profit call. .
Under his leadership, Tesla filed and eventually withdrew a lawsuit against California’s Alameda County, claiming that its health orders contradicted the state’s policy of closing businesses.
Last year, Musk gave three Republican anti-abortion lawmakers and four Democratic lawmakers who support abortion rights, giving $ 2,800 each, according to money-tracking policy maker OpenSecrets.org.
Both Tesla and SpaceX have considerable operations in Texas. Tesla is currently building its second U.S. vehicle factory outside of Austin. And SpaceX has been operating in the state since 2003.
Musk said on March 31 that the company should hire more than 10,000 people by 2022 for the new plant in operation in Texas.
Tesla is still headquartered in Palo Alto, California, and Tesla operates its first vehicle assembly plant in the United States near Fremont. But last May, Musk threatened to move its headquarters and future development to Texas and Nevada in protest of the pandemic-related restrictions in place in Golden State.