Musk the Virus Skeptic Makes Reluctant Ventilator Offer After GM
GM offered to make Ventilators in auto factories shuttered by the coronavirus outbreak, says Kudlow
(Bloomberg) --
Elon Musk joined General Motors Co. in offering to manufacture hospital ventilators amid the coronavirus outbreak, an effort that would echo Detroit’s contribution to Allied powers during World War II.
Responding to a tweet from a Tesla Inc. customer, Musk said late Wednesday his companies will make ventilators if there is a shortage, though he questioned in another post whether hospitals were running out of them. GM CEO Mary Barra floated the idea earlier, according to top White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow.
On Fox News, Kudlow described an unidentified auto executive’s offer to call back workers to idled plants to make the medical devices needed to treat critically ill virus patients, and said it was made “on a voluntary basis for civic and patriotic reasons.” He told reporters afterward he was referring to Barra.
Barra, 58, suggested ways the company could help during the crisis, a person familiar with the matter said. GM could use some of its excess factory space to build ventilators and has people looking into how that would be done, said the person, who asked not to be identified describing a private conversation.
The Trump administration has not yet formally asked GM to use its network of plants and suppliers to make any medical equipment, the person said.
Musk’s tweets didn’t provide any further details on potential plans. Tesla’s plant in California continues to operate, while other carmakers including GM and Ford Motor Co. are temporarily halting work because of the coronavirus outbreak.
The 48-year-old chief executive officer of Tesla and SpaceX has been casting doubt for weeks on the severity of Covid-19. In another tweet late Wednesday, he repeated his view that panic over the virus will do more harm than the illness itself.
Barra’s offer to make breathing machines evokes the period following U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s call for Americans to arm and support Britain, France and other nations in 1940. Detroit’s auto industry quickly transitioned their car assembly lines over to make military jeeps, tanks and bombers.
Within a year and a half after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, 350,000 workers moved to the Motor City to join in the war effort, according to the Detroit Historical Society.
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson earlier this week called on manufacturers to build ventilators. Carmakers Jaguar Land Rover Plc and Toyota Motor Corp. are among the companies that have offered to help.
Warren Buffett-backed Chinese automaker BYD Co. expanded into making face masks in February and now says it is the world’s biggest producer, churning out 5 million masks a day.
The quick switch from one product to another highlights the urgency with which countries and companies are trying to stop the deadly virus from paralyzing operations.
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