Eric Starkman of Los Angeles is a former Detroit News business reporter who blogs at Starkman Approved.
By Eric Starkman
And the disses of Detroit’s Big Three automakers just keep on coming.
Comedian Jay Leno is the latest to join the fray, hailing Tesla co-founder Elon Musk as a “visionary” on par with Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and Bill Gates.
Jay Leno and Elon Musk
“Can you imagine any of the major automobile manufacturers saying ‘Let’s call this high performance feature ‘Plaid’ like they did in ‘Spaceballs’ as a joke?‘” Leno said, referring to Tesla’s most high-powered vehicle. “You’d be fired or thrown out of the office.”
Leno also took a shot at the media for ever doubting Tesla’s success.
“Every time Elon Musk has a problem somewhere, I see these columnists with such glee: ‘It’s going to fail, I hope it goes in the tube, I hope he’s going to ruin it,’” he said. “I don’t understand why that is. It’s an American-made vehicle, made with locally-sourced products in America, using American talent.”
“Made in America” is obviously of great importance to Leno. He recently did an interview with Ford CEO Jim Farley during which he effused about Ford’s Mustang Mach-E.
“You know its American-made,” Leno crowed, never imagining that Ford would manufacture the iconic Mustang nameplate in a foreign country. In fact, Ford’s Mustang Mach-E is made in Mexico, where the company is reportedly thinking of manufacturing more vehicles.
Farley didn’t set Leno straight.
Leno’s high praise follows a decision by former Ford CEO Mark Fields this week to order 100,000 Tesla vehicles for Hertz, the rental car company he is temporarily overseeing. In an interview with Bloomberg Fields said, “Tesla is the only manufacturer that can produce EVs at scale.”
Musk on Twitter thanked Leno for his support, and said, “The cemetery of automotive startups over the past century is very large & will get larger. Tesla & Ford are the only American car companies that haven’t gone bankrupt.”
That’s true, but Ford has been around for more than 100 years. Tesla was founded in 2003. And to my knowledge no Ford CEO has ever settled SEC fraud charges, let alone run afoul of the agency a second time.
What Tesla and Ford have in common is having no loyalty to the regions that supported them and were responsible for their respective successes. Tesla recently announced it was relocating its headquarters from the Bay area to Austin, and Ford recently announced it plans to invest more than $11 billion in Tennessee and Kentucky for EV manufacturing facilities in those states.
Musk has repeatedly bashed California’s elected officials and Ford dissed Governor Gretchen Whitmer by not even giving Michigan an opportunity to bid on the Tennessee and Kentucky investments.
EV manufacturing is a marathon not a sprint, but Musk has never been one known for his humility. As best I can tell, neither has Farley.
Reach Eric Starkman at: eric@starkmanapproved.com.
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