During its earnings call on Tuesday, CEO Elon Musk announced that the company's plan to build a new gigafactory in Mexico is on hold until after the U.S. presidential election. That's because former President Trump has promised to tax cars made in Mexico.
“We're currently on pause with Giga Mexico,” Musk replied. “I guess we'll have to see how things are after the election.”
“Trump has said he will impose heavy tariffs on vehicles produced in Mexico, so it doesn't make sense to invest heavily in Mexico if that's going to be the case. So we'll have to see how things play out politically,” Musk explained, as reported by Bloomberg. Fox Business.
The tech billionaire has not yet revealed the types of vehicles it plans to produce at the Mexico plant. The company is now more concerned with increasing production capacity at existing factories, including for the future Robotaxi and its Optimus robots.
“However, we are increasing capacity at our existing factories significantly, and I should say that the Robotaxi will be produced here at our headquarters in Giga Texas, as will Optimus towards the end of next year for production version two of Optimus; the high-volume version of Optimus will also be produced here in Texas,” he added.
Earlier in the March campaign, Trump said he would impose a 100% tariff on vehicles made by Chinese automakers in Mexico that were imported into the United States.
“We're going to put a 100% tariff on every car that comes across the line, and they won't be able to sell those vehicles if I'm elected,” he said.
He reiterated the statement during his speech last week at the Republican National Convention.
The SpaceX CEO has decided to do so in a region where no Chinese car manufacturer has production facilities, with the aim of establishing a presence in the North American market.
