Elon Musk defies coronavirus order, asks to be arrested

PanARMENIAN.Net - Tesla CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that he’s reopening his company’s car factory in California in violation of a local shelter-in-place order, The Verge reported.

Musk said he’ll be on the company’s production line this week. “If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me,” he wrote.

Musk spent parts of the weekend railing against the order, which was put in place in mid-March by Alameda County officials in order to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. The order restricted all but “essential businesses” from performing anything other than the most minimal operations, like processing payroll. After initially fighting the order, Tesla shut down the factory on March 23rd.

Musk has argued that the statewide stay-at-home order put in place by governor Gavin Newsom left room for Tesla’s auto manufacturing plant to remain open, and Musk had Tesla file a lawsuit against the county on Saturday in protest. On Monday, Newsom said that the state has had “very constructive conversations” with the county officials and Tesla representatives and that he hoped the company could open up “as early as next week.”

Alameda County supervisor Scott Haggerty told The New York Times this past weekend that the county and Tesla had been close to an agreement to reopen the factory on May 18th, but that was before Musk lashed out and filed the lawsuit on Saturday.