Elon Musk condemns Biden’s Build Back Better bill and the incentives for electric cars | Elon Musk

Elon Musk criticized new incentives and infrastructure for electric vehicles in a huge spending bill, backed by Joe Biden, saying he would “remove” the measures and even scrap the entire legislation if he were in power.

Musk, the multi-billionaire founder of the electric car company Tesla, said that if he was in charge of the federal government “I could just pay this whole bill. That’s my recommendation.” The entrepreneur, speaking at a Wall Street Journal summit on Monday, added, “It might be better if the bill isn’t passed because we spent so much money, you know, it’s like the federal budget deficit is insane.”

The nearly $2 trillion reconciliation package, dubbed the Build Back Better bill, carries the weight of Biden’s agenda across many policy areas and has been hailed as the largest, and arguably the first, legislation in U.S. history to address the climate crisis. to grab. The bill passed by the House of Representatives last month, and Democrats hope it can navigate a deeply divided Senate before Christmas.

The spending includes significant incentives for Americans to abandon polluting vehicles and choose to go electric, including a tax credit that will bring in up to $12,500 for anyone who buys a zero-emission car. There is also money for the president’s goal of building 500,000 new charging stations for electric cars in the US.

But despite being the largest electric vehicle manufacturer in the world, Musk said these measures are “unnecessary.” He added: “Do we need federal support for gas stations? We do not. This is therefore not necessary for support of a charging network. I would remove it. Remove.”

Musk, who in October became the first person to have a net worth of more than $300 billion, also disapproved of funding the public transportation bill, which is seen as an important way to cut U.S. emissions. instead, he praised the need to build more roads, just underground.

“In busy cities, we need to do something about extreme traffic, which is a combination of double-deck highways and building tunnels,” said Musk, who in addition to running a car company also founded a tunnel construction company called the Boring Company.

Critics were quick to point out that Musk has himself benefited from billions of dollars in government grants to get his various ventures off the ground, with Tesla earning large sums from a zero-emission credit system offered in California.

Musk’s opposition to the $12,500 tax credit may also stem from the fact that it applies to electric cars made in the US by union workers. Tesla is not affiliated with any union. Other non-union automakers — including Toyota, Volkswagen and BMW — have urged lawmakers to drop the “discriminatory” incentive, as has the Mexican government. make objections to American-made.

Elon Musk is disappointed that Tesla doesn’t get as many subsidies for electric cars as Ford and GM (who have union employees, unlike Tesla) tweeted Tristan Snell, a corporate lawyer and CNN expert. “So he complains that nobody should get subsidies. That’s all.”

Others had sharp advice for Musk. “If Elon Musk is so concerned about the deficit, he may have to pay his share of taxes,” said Robert Reich, secretary of labor in Bill Clinton’s administration.