By Message Staff
MONROE, La. (LBM) – Congressman Ralph Abraham has invited Tesla CEO Elon Musk to relocate the electric vehicle manufacturer’s operations from Palo Alto, California, to northeast Louisiana.
Abraham, who is a member of Alto Baptist Church, sent a letter to Musk Tuesday and said the area has the qualified workforce to produce the company’s electric cars and solar panels. He cited employees who previously worked for the General Motors plant in Monroe that closed in 2007, and the area’s Interstate 20 Tech Corridor that includes CenturyLink as assets for a possible relocation.
Additionally, Abraham said northeast Louisiana provides affordable, high quality living and access to Interstate 20, an airport, rail service and ports that are situated along the Mississippi River.
“We’ve got some positives too that nobody else has,” Abraham told the Baptist Message. “We’ve got plenty of open spaces that have rail, fiber and water. We have people in Louisiana that are just chomping at the bits to go to work.
“The wonderful thing about Louisianans is that they are not afraid to do hard work and work that they can make a decent living at,” he continued. “Here in north Louisiana we are open for business and we will give them the logistics, we will give them the workforce, and we will give them the desire of our people to show them that they can do this successfully.”
Musk threatened to move his headquarters out of California after Alameda County closed his Fremont facility March 23 because of a shelter-in-place order. He reopened the factory Monday in defiance of the order.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbot and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis have since invited Musk to relocate his headquarters to their states.
