Musk finds supporter in Trump

Elon Musk is escalating his public opposition to government efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus, and in doing so he’s found a cheerleader in President Trump.

The Tesla founder and CEO recently announced that he would reopen a plant for the electric car maker in California against county orders and would move operations out of the state if he meets resistance. On Monday night, he tweeted that he would reopen the facility in Fremont, Calif., offering himself up to arrest if Alameda County officials decided to block his move.

Trump chimes in: The tweets this week from the mercurial CEO were the latest in a series of outbursts that have drawn attention and scrutiny. But this time, his efforts were met with support from Trump, whose administration is eager to move past the pandemic and reopen businesses across the country.

“California should let Tesla & @elonmusk open the plant, NOW,” Trump tweeted on Tuesday.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also voiced his support for Musk, telling CNBC on Monday that “California should prioritize doing whatever they need to do to solve those health issues so that he can open quickly and safely, or they’re going to find, as he’s threatened, he’s moving his production to a different state.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) encouraged Musk to move Tesla’s operations to Texas, where residents “very much want to open up and get back to work.”

Trump has praised Musk before, calling him one of the world’s “great geniuses” during a CNBC interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this year.

Early in Trump’s presidency, Musk joined a White House advisory council but later left when Trump announced he would be pulling out of the Paris climate accord.

That move by Musk was more in line with his earlier views on Trump. A few days before the 2016 election, Musk told CNBC that Trump “is probably not the right guy” to be president, adding that then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s economic and environmental policies “are the right ones.”

But whether Trump’s latest embrace of Musk will help the entrepreneur prevail in California is yet to be seen.