Courting the next ones Tesla-Factory is in full swing. In the USA Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (69) just met in New York Elon Musk (51) together in person. In the Turkish House, a skyscraper near the UN building, Erdogan asked the Tesla boss to build a production facility in his country, Erdogan’s presidential office confirmed on Monday. According to the Turkish state news agency Anadolu, Musk replied that Turkey was “among the main candidates” for the new plant.
At the same time, the emissaries of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (38) are also courting the company’s favor. According to a report by the “Wall Street Journal”
The first discussions were already taking place behind the scenes on Monday. The Arabs lured Tesla with the promise of important raw materials Africa to take care of what they had already taken care of in the past few months. The talks are sensitive because the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), is the majority owner of Tesla’s US rival Lucid. And because Musk has had a lot of trouble in recent years with his connections to the Saudis.
So far, Tesla only produces cars in the USA, China and Germany. A seventh plant is currently being built in Mexico. In order to achieve his own production goals, Musk wants to put additional factories into operation; possibly up to a dozen in total. In May he announced he would likely select the location for another new factory by the end of 2023. India was also mentioned by Tesla in August as a possible location to produce low-cost electric cars.
The Saudi negotiators promise Musk that in the future they will be able to purchase certain quantities of metals and minerals from countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Saudis approached the government of the African country in June to secure important assets in Congo. Around 70 percent of global cobalt supplies come from the country. In a cobalt and copper project in Congo, the Saudis are also apparently considering extending financing to the raw materials trading giant Trafigura so that it can build a Tesla factory in Saudi Arabia could provide.
For Tesla, a deal with the Saudis could mean the electric car maker could reach its goal of selling 20 million vehicles annually by 2030. In 2022, Tesla sold 1.3 million vehicles, while Toyota, the world’s largest carmaker, delivered 10.5 million. The attempt to retain Tesla fits into bin Salman’s strategy in that he wants to gain access to metals abroad and refine them at home and integrate them into a new ecosystem focused on renewable energy.
In any case, a deal between Musk and the Saudis would be a surprising turn in relations. In 2018, the PIF purchased $2 billion worth of publicly available Tesla shares. A little later there were discussions between the fund and Musk about further investments. The meeting became a precursor to a well-known tweet. In it, Musk wrote that he wanted to privatize Tesla and that financing was secured. The US Securities and Exchange Commission later sued the Tesla boss for deceiving investors. In the meantime, both parties agreed on a settlement, but the share price suffered massively at times.
Instead, the PIF continued to invest in Lucid. Tesla’s rival already has a factory on the Red Sea coast in Saudi Arabia. Assembly of the luxury electric vehicles is expected to begin there this month.