Imagine a White House event on electric vehicles snubbing the biggest player in the game—Tesla’s Elon Musk—and now, years later, even Kamala Harris is calling it a blunder.
This story boils down to Harris publicly rebuking President Joe Biden’s 2021 decision to leave Musk out of a key electric vehicle summit, a move she labeled a significant misstep with lasting political ripples, as New York Post reports.
Back in August 2021, the White House hosted a high-profile event to push a goal of half of all new vehicles being zero-emissions by 2030.
Executives from General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis were front and center, basking in the spotlight.
Yet Tesla, the undisputed leader in U.S. electric vehicle production, didn’t get an invite to the party.
The reasoning, as hinted by then-press secretary Jen Psaki, pointed to Tesla’s non-unionized workforce, unlike the other attendees who employed United Auto Workers members.
Reports swirled that union pressure kept Tesla on the sidelines, despite its dominance in the market.
Tesla officials pushed for meetings with Biden’s team after his inauguration, only to be met with closed doors and, eventually, a mere apology call when the exclusion became public.
Harris, speaking at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit in Washington, D.C., didn’t hold back on her critique of this oversight.
“I write in the book that I thought it was a big mistake to not invite Elon Musk when we did a big EV event,” Harris told Fortune Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell.
She’s got a point—snubbing the top innovator in a field you’re championing isn’t just a slight, it’s a strategic fumble that screams political favoritism over merit.
Musk himself fired back at the time with a terse social media jab: “Yeah, seems odd that Tesla wasn’t invited.”
Shortly after, tensions escalated as Biden praised GM’s Mary Barra for supposedly leading the electric vehicle revolution, ignoring Tesla’s staggering delivery numbers that dwarfed GM’s output.
The White House later tried to patch things up with calls to Musk, but the damage was done, fueling his vocal frustration with an administration he called biased and overly swayed by union interests.
Musk’s disillusionment didn’t stop at words; his growing alignment with Republican priorities became evident as he criticized progressive cultural trends and policy focuses.
Harris, in her memoir “107 Days,” notes this 2021 snub as a pivotal moment that pushed Musk away, eventually turning him into a major financial supporter of GOP causes.
While Biden’s team may have thought they were playing to their base, they alienated a tech titan whose influence—and wallet—could swing the other way, a miscalculation Harris rightly flags as shortsighted.
Beyond the Musk debacle, Harris also took aim at Biden’s early legislative focus on infrastructure and tech manufacturing over pressing needs like child care and family leave.
She warned that ignoring everyday struggles while inflation soared left voters feeling abandoned, a sentiment that resonates with those tired of government prioritizing grand projects over kitchen-table issues.
It’s a fair critique—Washington’s habit of chasing shiny objects while families struggle isn’t just tone-deaf, it’s a recipe for political backlash.
Meanwhile, Biden’s personal challenges add another layer to this saga, as he undergoes intensive treatment for Stage 4 prostate cancer.
Recent photos from a church appearance in Wilmington, Delaware, show him looking weakened, leaning on support, a visible scar from skin cancer surgery marking his face.
This image of frailty contrasts sharply with the bold policy moves of 2021, reminding us that leadership missteps can linger long after the decisions are made.
