At a White House electric vehicle summit in May 2021, Elon Musk and Tesla Motors were notably absent from the guest list—a move widely perceived as a deliberate snub by the Biden administration.
When asked about the incident at the time, General Motors CEO Mary Barra downplayed the exclusion, stating that while GM received praise for leading the EV revolution, she didn’t dwell on the perceived slight.
However, during an event this Wednesday, Barra revealed to interviewer Andrew Ross Sorkin that she had privately clarified the matter with then-President Biden.
“He complimented me, and I said, ‘Actually, I think a lot of the credit goes to Elon and Tesla,’” Barra recounted. “You know me, Andrew. I don’t take credit where it’s not due.”
Musk has been vocal about his frustration with the Biden administration’s dismissal. In a December 2021 post, he wrote: “Let’s not forget the White House snubbing Tesla, excluding us from the EV summit, while praising GM for ‘leading the EV revolution’ in the same quarter—when GM delivered 26 EVs (not a typo) and Tesla delivered 300,000.”
Even Vice President Kamala Harris, later the Democratic presidential nominee, admitted that failing to invite the billionaire was a “mistake.”
“If you’re gathering the nation’s EV makers and the biggest player in the field isn’t there, it just doesn’t make sense,” she wrote in a book about the 2024 campaign. “Musk will never forgive it.”
