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Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk on Monday vowed to reopen the company’s Silicon Valley car-making plant in defiance of the local coronavirus shutdown order.
Health authorities in Alameda County, one of the six San Francisco Bay Area counties under a regional shelter-in-place order set to expire May 31, have said that Tesla’s TSLA, -0.99% factory in Fremont does not meet their criteria to reopen and that their more stringent order prevails over the state’s.
Musk on Saturday tweeted that he will move Tesla’s factory and headquarters out of California, and hours later Tesla made good on his threat to sue Alameda County, calling the local shutdown order a “power grab.”
On a blog post titled “Getting Back to Work,” Tesla on Saturday said it was preparing to resume operations with certain modifications in place and saying it had shared the plan with local authorities.
A spokesperson with the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment, and neither Tesla nor the Fremont Police Department immediately responded to requests for comment.
Musk has railed against shutdown orders on Twitter and, more unusually, during a conference call with analysts to discuss Tesla’s first-quarter results last month. At the time, Musk called the orders, put in place to stem the spread of the coronavirus, “fascist.”
Local health authorities on Friday foiled Tesla’s plans to start reopening the factory, clarifying that their own shutdown orders trumped the fact that some nonessential businesses are reopening elsewhere in the state.
Tesla shares have gained 239% in the past 12 months, compared with gains around 1.7% for the S&P 500 index. SPX, +0.01%
