Tesla boss on arson attack
Economics Minister: “Elon Musk was very matter-of-fact”
March 6, 2024, 5:42 p.m
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An arson attack on a power pole completely paralyzes the Tesla factory in Grünheide, Brandenburg. Economics Minister Steinbach praises Musk’s objectivity and promises that the attack will not diminish the Tesla boss’s general confidence in his settlement.
According to Brandenburg’s Economics Minister Jörg Steinbach, Tesla boss Elon Musk responded matter-of-factly to the attack, which has temporarily paralyzed the factory. Steinbach said he spoke to the company boss on the phone on Tuesday. “Elon Musk reacted very matter-of-factly and confidently,” Steinbach told the “Tagesspiegel”. “There was immediate agreement that nothing should happen in response that would have allowed the attackers to be successful. At the same time, of course, he called for both a solidarity response and concrete confidence-building responses to support the company and its employees.”
According to the minister, no negative consequences for the settlement are foreseeable following the attack. If all Brandenburg forces react adequately – if the state government, police and others restore the relationship of trust in the location, which has certainly just been damaged – no consequences are to be expected, said Steinbach. “Incidentally, that is also the tenor of the discussions that I had and am having with Tesla manager Rohan Patel in the USA after the attack.”
Unknown perpetrators set fire to a power pole in a field in Gosen-Neu Zittau near the Tesla factory in Grünheide on Tuesday. The so-called “volcano group” later claimed responsibility for the arson. Because the electricity pylon is essential for supplying electricity to the factory, production had to be stopped for the time being. The company expects a production downtime of several days. Plant manager André Thierig estimates the damage at hundreds of millions of euros.