SAN FRANCISCO • Tesla chief executive Elon Musk lashed out at the California county blocking his company from reopening its only US plant, threatening to immediately relocate operations to other states and cease manufacturing at the factory.
Hours after he tweeted that Tesla would sue Alameda County, which did not allow the facility to resume operations last Friday, the electric-car maker filed a complaint with the United States District Court in San Francisco.
Tesla claims the county's health order violates due process and "puts businesses deemed critical to the nation's well-being by the federal and state governments between a rock and a hard place".
Mr Musk, who has called coronavirus-related shutdown orders fascist, said Tesla will decide whether to keep producing cars in Fremont, California, based on how it is treated going forward.
The Bay Area was the first region in the country to implement stay-home orders to contain the spread of Covid-19 and has been cautious about lifting them.
The lead attorney in the suit is Mr Alex Spiro, the Manhattan attorney who helped Mr Musk prevail in a defamation case last year. The suit, along with Mr Musk's tweets, ratchet up the pressure on California Governor Gavin Newsom and local officials.
Mr Musk has arguably been the tech sector's loudest voice advocating for the reopening of the economy, drawing criticism from some peers in the business community and cheers from conservative political circles.
"Part of it is just frustration from the view of Musk and Tesla, given they are basically grounded around Fremont, which is the heart and lungs of their business," said Mr Dan Ives, a Wedbush Securities analyst. He added that Mr Musk is playing "a game of poker to put more pressure on the county to open up".
Tesla has roughly 20,000 employees in the Bay Area, including its headquarters in Palo Alto. It announced internally in late March that two staff members tested positive for the virus but did not specify which office they worked in.
In a blog post last Saturday, Tesla said it has started the process of resuming operations and described its restart plan as "the result of months of careful planning and preparation". "Tesla is not an outlier, nor are we going against the grain," it said.
Mr Musk at first defied Alameda's mid-March shutdown order and resisted pressure from the county and Fremont to idle the factory.
While Tesla claimed it was an essential business, the county's health officer disagreed and said the plant posed a public health risk. Much of the Bay Area has since extended shelter-in-place orders through the end of this month.
Tesla's factory employs roughly 10,000 people, including many who commute from outside of Alameda County.
Fremont Mayor Lily Mei said last Saturday that she was increasingly concerned about the economic impact of Tesla and other manufacturers not being allowed to resume operations. She encouraged the county to engage with local companies to come up with guidelines to reopen.
"The Alameda County Health Care Services Agency and the Public Health Department have been communicating directly and working closely with the Tesla team on the ground in Fremont," the county said in a statement last Saturday.
"The team at Tesla has been responsive to our guidance and recommendations, and we look forward to coming to an agreement on an appropriate safety plan very soon."
The mayor of Palo Alto, where Tesla has its global headquarters, also chimed in to voice his support for the company.
Following through on the threat to move Tesla's headquarters and future programmes to Texas and Nevada, where the company has its battery plant, will be costly and challenging for Mr Musk but relatively easier than ending production in Fremont. The factory is the only place in the world where Tesla makes the electric vehicle models S, X and Y.
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