Electric car titan Tesla (TSLA) – Get Tesla Inc Report has decided it doesn’t want German government aid after all for the battery factory it has almost finished building near Berlin.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk explained the decision to forego trying to get 1.14 billion euros ($1.3 billion) out of the German government in a tweet naturally.
He said he opposes any form of government aid. “It has always been Tesla’s view that all subsidies should be eliminated, but that must include the massive subsidies for oil & gas,” Musk tweeted. “For some reason, governments don’t want to do that …”
Of course, that doesn’t exactly explain why Tesla applied for the aid in the first place.
The European Union approved a plan in January to subsidize electric-vehicle battery production for Tesla, BMW (BMWYY) and others. A final decision was expected before year-end.
Germany wants to blunt battery competition from China. Tesla’s plant is located in Gruenheide, Brandenburg.
Tesla shares fell Friday along with the overall market, closing at $1,082, down 3%.
In other Tesla news Friday, it reportedly plans to invest up to $188 million to expand production capacity at its Shanghai factory.
The news came from China’s state-run newspaper Beijing Daily, which cited a Shanghai government platform for companies’ environmental information disclosures.
Reuters also viewed the government platform, but says the investment amount was removed by the time it accessed the document.
Tesla’s Shanghai factory as is currently designed to produce up to 500,000 cars a year with its 15,000 employees. The investment could add 4,000 people to the workforce.
