Tesla (TSLA) rises on officially being allowed to restart production

Tesla’s stock (TSLA) is gaining today after the company confirmed that it is officially allowed to restart production at its Fremont factory with local county approval.

Last week, Tesla called employees back to work at the Fremont factory despite still being in discussions with Alameda County over its plan to safely reopen the factory.

As part of the state’s guidelines for restarting manufacturing, the automaker needed to submit a specific plan for reopening the Fremont factory.

Tesla ended up starting the process to reopen the factory and called back workers before they had approval from the county, which was especially concerned with Tesla’s screening of employees before entering shuttles that bring workers from other counties into Alameda County.

Over the weekend, Tesla’s HR leader Laurie Shelby told employees that they got official approval to go back to work (via The Chronicle):

“We have local support to get back to full production at the factory starting this upcoming week. We’re excited to continue to get back to work.”

Tesla already had a lot of employees back to work over the last week and even managed to produce a few hundred vehicles per day, but it will take a while for the automaker to get back to full production.

Some employees were uncomfortable last week to break the local order and go to work despite Tesla not having the county’s approval. They were told by Tesla that they might lose their unemployment if they don’t return to work.

Following the county’s approval, which came on May 18 – the county’s original timeline to reopen the plan once it had Tesla’s plan, Tesla’s stock jumped 4% this morning before settling at up 2%: