Climate change, says the green movement, should bring the Left and Right together in action. Yet Green MEP Sara Matthieu, who is coordinator of the EU Parliament’s environment committee, believes Europe should boycott Tesla and Twitter/X owner Elon Musk because he is ‘of the Right.’
Logically speaking, Matthieu’s call stands right in the way of her simultaneous support for damaging climate laws forcing European vehicle manufacturers to give money to companies like Tesla if they fail to sell ‘enough’ electric cars (EV).
Analysts reckon that Tesla could acquire more than €1 billion in compensation from rival manufacturers because of Brussels’ pollution standards, which are destroying continental competitiveness. Matthieu insisted it would be a “fatal mistake” to listen to European carmakers—who complain about being pushed into either handing cash to Tesla or China’s BYD Auto, or to sell EVs at steep losses—and “weaken climate legislation” because
Then we will fuel the next forest fire or flood with our political shortsightedness.
Perhaps other greens will point out to Matthieu that her call for a boycott against Musk’s ‘eco-friendly’ EVs—based on the fact he “pumps millions into [US president Donald] Trump, turns X into a far-right propaganda machine and buys his place in power”—is itself a result of the very political shortsightedness she attacks.
Political adviser David Neyskens also joked that her message is unlikely to go down well among German workers at the Tesla ‘gigafactory’ outside Berlin, the company’s first manufacturing location in Europe.
Similar calls were made by Polish sports minister Sławomir Nitras last month, after Musk said Germans today should “move beyond” the guilt over their country’s Nazi past. Nitras insisted that “no normal Pole should buy a Tesla anymore,” though analysts were quick to point out that next to none could afford to do so anyway.
