Tesla Germany halts work as Musk calls suspected arson 'extremely dumb'
By Nette Noestlinger and Christoph Steitz
BERLIN/FRANKFURT (Reuters) — Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA)'s European Gigafactory near Berlin halted production and was left without power after what CEO Elon Musk called an «extremely dumb» suspected arson attack that set an electricity pylon ablaze close to the site early on Tuesday.
The blaze southeast of the German capital, which did not spread to the Tesla site — the U.S. electric vehicle maker's first manufacturing plant in Europe — was extinguished by the fire brigade, police said.
A Tesla spokesperson confirmed production had stopped and the site evacuated. Tesla's Frankfurt-listed shares were down 2.8% 1308 GMT.
Local media published a letter purportedly from a far-left activist organisation called the Volcano Group that claimed responsibility for the incident, in a 2,500-word attack on Tesla and its billionaire CEO Musk.
Police said they were aware of the letter, which was signed «Agua De Pau», the name of a volcanic mountain in the Azores, and said they were checking its authenticity.
«These are either the dumbest eco-terrorists on Earth or they're puppets of those who don't have good environmental goals,» Musk said on X.
«Stopping production of electric vehicles, rather than fossil fuel vehicles, ist extrem dumm,» he said, using the German for «extremely dumb».
It was the latest setback for Tesla, which has had a bumpy ride in Europe of late, facing union pressure for collective bargaining agreements in the Nordics and supply disruptions as a result of attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.
Germany has championed new big-ticket foreign investments at a time when Europe's largest economy is facing recession and grappling with higher inflation and weaker foreign demand.
«If the
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