SAN FRANCISCO — Elon Musk’s relationship with California has always been complicated — but Musk’s MAGAfication has made it downright rancorous.
The tech executive amassed the world’s largest fortune by building Tesla into an automotive juggernaut, anchored by an East Bay manufacturing plant, and firing SpaceX rockets from the Southern California desert and central coast. Billions of dollars in state subsidies helped him prosper.
But along the way, even as Musk forged relationships with Democratic politicians like Gov. Gavin Newsom, he began to turn on the state that helped make him.
California officials have begun to turn on him, too. Members of the state’s coastal protection agency cited his support for former President Donald Trump and his “spewing and tweeting political falsehoods” last week before rejecting a Defense Department proposal to increase SpaceX launches.
His hostility to politically potent labor unions and his perennial complaints about overregulation — not atypical for California business leaders — have veered into deep-red territory as Musk embraced former President Donald Trump while inveighing against illegal immigration and “woke” policies like legislation seeking to protect transgender children.