Tesla Inc. TSLA CEO Elon Musk says that he was invited to the Rose Garden event at the White House by President Donald Trump, but he wouldn’t be able to attend.
Elon Musk Says He ‘Unfortunately Could Not Attend’ The Event
Taking to the social media platform X on Thursday, the billionaire responded to a post by user Natalie F Danelishen who questioned the White House’s decision to invite Microsoft Corp MSFT founder Bill Gates but not Musk at the exclusive event with eminent business and tech personalities, including Meta Platforms Inc. META CEO Mark Zuckerberg and OpenAI founder Sam Altman.
“I was invited, but unfortunately could not attend,” Musk said in his response to the post, acknowledging the event. He added that a “representative” will be there at the event in his stead. He did not elaborate on who the representative will be.
Trump Calls Musk “80% Super Genius,”
The comments come as Trump had recently hailed Musk as a genius in a recent phone interview. “He’s 80% super genius,” Trump said of Musk before adding that there were “20% problems” with the SpaceX founder. “When he works out the 20%, he’ll be great,” Trump said in the interview, adding that he “liked” Musk.
Trump had also called Musk a good person in a White House press briefing in August, acknowledging that the billionaire just had “a really bad moment,” signaling that tensions had eased between the pair following a wave of back and forth between the two over several topics, including Trump ending the $7,500 Federal EV Credit as part of the Big, Beautiful Bill and the Epstein files row.
Musk’s Possible MAGA Return, Tesla Sales Decline
Interestingly, Vice President JD Vance had earlier said in an interview that he was hopeful that Musk would return to the GOP and the MAGA contingent, something other prominent MAGA voices have also called for.
Musk had reportedly donated more than $250 million to the Trump camp in the run-up to the 2024 Presidential Election, as well as extensively campaigning for Trump last year. Musk’s endorsement of right-wing political ideals, as well as Trump’s, among other reasons, has hurt Tesla sales, which fell over 40% in Europe recently.
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