At least that is what the Tesla CEO said while also defending his decision to stay on president Donald Trump’s advisory council. According to a brief statement issued via Twitter, Musk noted that he was responsible for getting the immigration ban on the agenda for Friday’s White House meeting.
While taking up office as the President, Donlad Trump ensured that he would be surrounded by the who and who of the tech industry by inviting some of the leaders of corporate America to join his economics advisory council. Members included the likes of Indira Nooyi, Travis Kalanick and Elon Musk. All was going well until the controversial immigration ban, that saw President Trump issue an executive order putting travel to and from seven middle eastern countries on hold.
After that decision, there was an outburst both in the tech community and among the general public, against the decision. Many corporate executives, including from the likes of Uber, Lyft, Microsoft, Google and Facebook opposed the statement. Indeed, while Google sanctioned a nationwide protest by its employees, Uber and Lyft contributed different sums of money towards helping the ACLU continue its legal battles against the ban.
Yesterday’s meeting was important because it would have marked the first time that President Trump directly met with people from a section that has been united in opposing him bitterly over the immigration ban — namely, the tech community. And the members of the council have themselves drawn flak over working with the Trump administration. However, the Tesla CEO believes that remaining on the council is the wise course of action to take and yesterday’s meeting appears to have reaffirmed his faith.
As per Musk:
At my request, the agenda for yesterday’s White House meeting went from not mentioning the travel ban to having it be first and foremost.
Well, that sounds pretty great. However, as one Twitter user pointed out, the order has already been put on hold thanks to a ruling by a federal judge. Musk responded by saying that it was important to oppose the decision on all fronts — whether judicial, legislative and executive.
Apparently, Musk also raised several other pertinent issues at the meet, issues that are likely to be sidelined by the new administration. He said:
In addition, I again raised climate. I believe this is doing good, so will remain on council & keep at it. Doing otherwise would be wrong.
That fact that climate formed an important part of the discussion was corroborated by other executives as well. As GM CEO Mary Barra told TechCrunch,
I’m pleased to have been part of a very constructive discussion on how we can all work together on policies that support a strong and competitive U.S. economy, create jobs and address safety and environmental issues. As we have stated, a vibrant U.S. economy that is competitive globally and that grows jobs is what we all want.
Meanwhile, Musk’s defense of his decision of staying on in the council comes in face of several customers canceling their Model 3 pre-orders because they didn’t like the fact that the CEO of the company was working with the White House.
Well, each to his own but personally, I cant help but agree with the Tesla CEO’s decision to stay on. Look at it this way: These meetings are closed door and but for Elon Musk’s tweets, we would have known mighty less of what transpired yesterday.
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