The looks was meant to advertise California’s dedication to electrical car initiatives and its sturdy financial system, but it surely additionally highlighted Newsom’s long-standing relationship with the polarizing billionaire, which seems to be alive and effectively regardless of Tesla relocating a few of its operations to Texas, ignoring the state’s pandemic orders, and Musk almost operating one other Silicon Valley big, Twitter, into the bottom.
Newsom says his relationship with Musk goes again “a long time,” however the two have engaged in some gentle public sparring lately. Musk in 2021 derided California as “the land of type of overregulation, overlitigation, overtaxation.” The governor in September prompt Tesla wouldn’t even exist with out California’s incentives.
However none of that was introduced up on Wednesday. Musk cheerfully famous that Newsom was “one of many first to purchase a Tesla Roadster again within the day” — noting he would have needed to put down $100,000 to order one in 2007. That additionally means Newsom would have been one of many first Californians to purchase an electrical car. In keeping with information from the state’s vitality fee, solely 112 zero-emission automobiles had been bought by 2010.
“That was a wholesome deposit you needed to make,” Newsom stated, joking he made the acquisition “again after I had cash.”
“That was some huge cash in 2007,” Musk stated.
“It’s nonetheless some huge cash,” Newsom replied. “Belief me, brother, you haven’t appeared at my wage … We had about the identical web price again then, 20 years in the past.”
The governor, who receives a state salary of $224,020, reported at least $1.6 million in revenue, property and investments for 2021. Newsom based a profitable wine and hospitality enterprise in 1992, however moved the Plumpjack Group assets to a blind trust upon taking workplace in 2018.
His workplace didn’t reply to a query about what number of Tesla automobiles he owns, however a 2018 profile in The New Yorker makes point out of three Teslas in his driveway.
By the tip of 2022, a complete of about 1.4 million ZEVs had been bought within the state, together with 346,000 bought final yr for almost 19 p.c of the brand new car market. California has a objective of propelling electrical car gross sales to one hundred pc of the brand new automobile market by 2035.
Jeremy B. White contributed to this report.
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