Democratic Kingmaker Calls for Clean Break From Silicon Valley

April 16, 2025, 9:00 AM UTC

Covid-19 was ripping across the world, California was urging residents to stay home, and it was all getting in Elon Musk’s way.

Determined not to let pandemic precautions dent factory production, the CEO of Tesla Inc. reopened the company’s Bay Area production plant, flouting local policies.

“F*ck Elon Musk,” Lorena Gonzalez, then a California state assembly member, posted to Twitter on May 9, 2020.

Gonzalez’s comment broke with Democratic orthodoxy. Musk, at the time, was primarily seen as a visionary—albeit an eccentric one—doing what generations of environmental activists had dreamed of in rolling out an electric vehicle that resonated with ...

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