Top aides to President Joe Biden met with Elon Musk on Friday to discuss the future of electric cars while the Twitter owner also met with Republicans on Capitol Hill who are investigating his company’s suppression of a story on Hunter Biden‘s laptop.
The controversial CEO has been in Washington D.C. this week to meet with leading players in the executive and legislative branches of government. He met with top leaders on Capitol Hill – House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries – but did not get a sit down with President Biden.
Musk’s visit to the nation’s capital has a dual purpose: he’s pushing to get his work at Tesla recognized by the White House and he’s with Republicans investigating alleged bias against the GOP by social media companies, including Twitter’s suppression of stories about the president’s son, which happened before Musk bought the company.
Elon Musk leaves Tesla’s Washington D.C. office where he met with top Biden aides
Elon Musk also met with Republicans investigating Twitter’s suppression of a story involving Hunter Biden’s laptop – above President Joe Biden with his son Hunter and grandson Beau at the White House in July 2022
On Friday, Musk met with Biden top advisers John Podesta and Mitch Landrieu at Tesla’s Washington D.C. office. He did not go to the White House.
The men discussed their ‘shared goals around electrification and how the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act can advance electric vehicle production and charging as well as the broader cause of electrification,’ a White House spokesperson said.
Podesta is a senior adviser focused on climate and Landrieu oversees the implementation of the bipartisan infrastructure law.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had no comment when DailyMail.com asked during her Friday press briefing if the president’s son was a topic of conversation, referring the matter to Hunter Biden’s attorney.
Biden, to Musk’s public frustration, rarely includes Tesla as he pushes for more electric cars to replace gas-guzzling vehicles. Musk called Biden a ‘damp sock puppet’ over the snubs.
‘The meeting says a lot of how important the President thinks the bipartisan infrastructure legislation is and how the inflation Reduction Act is, especially as it relates to EVs and his commitment,’ Jean-Pierre said. ‘I think it’s important that senior members of his team had a meeting with Elon Musk today to do just that.’
Tesla, founded in 2003, produced 23% of the battery-electric (purely electric) market and 16% of the plug-in market (which includes plug-in hybrids) in 2020.
But the Biden administration that the car giant has no auto unions for its workers. Telsa is the only American auto manufacturer without unions and the White House prides itself on its strong relationship with unions.
Elon Musk met with Biden top advisers John Podesta (left), a climate adviser, and Mitch Landrieu (right), who oversees the implementation of the bipartisan infrastructure law, at Tesla’s Washington D.C. office
Elon Musk also met with Republican Congressman Jim Jordan (left), the head of the Judiciary committee, and James Comer (right), the head of the Oversight panel
Meanwhile, Musk also has been holding meetings on Capitol Hill.
He spoke with McCarthy and Jeffries on Thursday.
And, on Friday, he met with Republican Congressman Jim Jordan, the head of the Judiciary committee, and James Comer, the head of the Oversight panel, according to reports.
Both men are investigating Twitter and other tech giants on allegations of anti-conservative bias.
Musk has previously accused Twitter of a bias toward the left and, after his $44 billion takeover of Twitter in October, made changes to counter that. That inclues reversing the company’s decision to suspend Donald Trump’s Twitter account.
Additionally Comer has said he plans to investigate whether the government played a role in Twitter’s decision to suppress a 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop.
The House Oversight Committee is planning to hold a hearing next month on the matter.
The panel invited three former Twitter employees to testify, CNN reported.
Musk has pushed for full disclosure on the decision, which happened before he bought the social media giant.
He has pushed out the Twitter files, which shows the company indepedently decided to limit the posting about the New York Post article without government offiicals or agencies or the Biden campaign interferring.
The Twitter files are corporate communications that have been disseminated to journalists hand-picked by Musk and his team at Twitter.
Elon Musk on Thursday met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (left) and Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (right)
On Thursday, Musk tweeted he met with McCarthy and Jeffries on Capitol Hill to discuss ‘ensuring that Twitter is fair to both parties’.
But McCarthy was more cryptic, telling reporters on Capitol Hill that Musk ‘came to wish me a happy birthday.’
McCarthy, who turned 58 on Thursday, added: ‘We’ve been friends for years.’
And an aide to Jeffries told The Washington Post that the Democratic leader and Musk had only a coincidental encounter as Musk was coming to meet with McCarthy.
‘Jeffries was meeting with McCarthy in the Speaker’s office and, as it was ending, Musk came in,’ the aide said. ‘They didn’t have a meeting. They met. It was mostly just an introduction.’