Billionaire Elon Musk would ‘strongly consider’ the North East for the next Tesla gigafactory. Tesla founder Mr Musk – the second richest man on the planet with a $180bn fortune – took part in a Wall Street Journal CEO Council event in London this week to reveal his thoughts on AI, Twitter and SpaceX.
Business Live is reporting that when questions were taken from the floor, Ian Baggett, founder of Newcastle based Adderstone Group, pointed out the North East’s prowess in the manufacture and export of vehicles and asked: “Would you let me build you a Tesla factory in the North East of England?”
Mr Musk replied that his car company was not looking for locations at this precise time, but that he would be looking later this year. He said: “I will strongly consider England for a future location of a gigafactory. We are not currently looking at new locations but we will probably towards the end of this year.”
While admitting the question was a tongue in cheek request, Mr Baggett says it was widely recognised that the region would make an ideal base for electric vehicles companies, and that he has since been contacted by a raft of professionals keen to at least make a bid for it to become a reality.
He said: “Elon Musk spent more than an hour talking to us via video link and it was brilliant, he’s certainly someone worth listening to. At the end of the session I thought I’m going to take this opportunity to bring this back down to earth, it’s a cliche but no one had mentioned Tesla, nor is there any chace of getting a Tesla plant in the UK. As soon as the compere asked for questions I actually stood up – lots of people put their hands up but I stood up. I thought my son would love it if I got to ask Elon Musk a question.
“I didn’t want to pitch or sell Adderstone so I didn’t introduce myself. It is a tongue in cheek question, but if there’s half a chance of pulling something off then don’t write me off – I’ve done some crazy stuff in my life and it’s all started from the mantra ‘shy bairns get nowt’.
“And who knows, maybe we’ve got a seed here? What I’ve got in mind is an offshore wind farm – Dogger Bank Windfarm – which could easily power a Tesla plant. We’ve got Saudi investment here and they apparently get on well with Elon Musk.
“We’ve got the LEP, and I’ve already been in touch with Mark Thompson who can scour the North East for sites – of which we have hundreds of post industrial sites that could potentially host a factory like this. We’ve got a track record with Nissan, and the story of Hitachi coming here is not dissimilar because I’m told a businessman pitched to the company to come here, plus we have a great workforce hungry for work.