Long Beach Loses Out

Via curbed la and District Weekly, Tesla has chosen Downey over Long Beach to manufacture the new four-door electric Model S.

The highlight:

But while Downey’s city officials were united and aggressive in their pursuit of Tesla’s enigmatic CEO Elon Musk, the City of Long Beach—particularly Mayor Bob Foster and city management—was accused of being difficult and nearly indifferent toward the possibility of a manufacturing plant that is expected to bring between 1,000 and 1,200 jobs to the area.

In fact, it was Musk who most strongly voiced that criticism, telling LBReport.com in an August 16 interview that “if the behavior of city management and the Mayor were the deciding factor, Long Beach would definitely not win.”

In that same interview, Musk said Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske was “the first and only call” to him personally and confirmed her internet journal (blog) dispatch to the effect that his company’s staff came away from meetings with other Long Beach officials “thinking that Long Beach actually didn’t really want us there and would much prefer the movie studio.”

Nice work!

It would have been nice to have those 1,000+ jobs in our beloved LB. Sad.