United States President Joe Biden's relationship with Elon Musk is indeed more inconsistent. Recently, Biden also satirized Musk and SpaceX's plans to launch a manned mission to the Moon.
The satire started when Biden was asked for his opinion on Musk's negative views on the global economy. Biden then made a sarcastic comment.
"Good luck on his journey to the Moon," Biden said, as quoted by CNBC, Saturday (4/6/2022).
The question for Biden refers to a recent report that says Tesla will lay off 10% of its employees and temporarily stop hiring new employees.
Reports of massive layoffs at Tesla, which has about 100,000 employees, came to light in an email Musk sent to Tesla executives. In the email, Musk said he had a bad feeling about the economy.
In his response, Biden mentioned that Tesla's competitors such as Ford and Stellantis are actually increasing their investment in the US at this time. The 46th US president also praised Intel, which plans to create 20,000 jobs as part of its investment in Ohio.
Shortly after Biden made his comments, Musk immediately responded to the innuendo via a tweet on Twitter. "Thank you Mr President," the world's richest man tweeted.
Thanks Mr President!https://t.co/dCcTQLsJTp
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 3, 2022
Musk's tweet also contained a link to NASA's official announcement that it had selected SpaceX to launch US astronauts to the Moon. NASA has awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion grant to develop a rocket to the Moon as part of the Artemis mission, so Biden should wish the mission a success as it is one of NASA's most important missions.
This isn't the first time Biden and Musk have clashed publicly. In March, Musk was annoyed that Biden praised Ford and General Motors but did not mention Tesla in his State of the Union address.
Two months later, Musk again lashed out at Biden's government as ineffective. He also said the real US president was behind Biden's teleprompter.