COMMENT | Much ado about Tesla

COMMENT | Last week, there was a lot of media buzz and commentary when a Thai newspaper, The Nation, reported that Tesla had cancelled their plans to build an auto manufacturing facility in Thailand.

It was also not considering other new locations for factory expansion outside its existing plants in China, Germany, and the United States.

Some of this commentary targeted Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim for his inability to “deliver” more Tesla investments despite showering much attention on Elon Musk and granting special exemptions to Tesla and Starlink, another Musk-owned company.

A more careful reading and understanding of the larger electric vehicle (EV) landscape shows that Anwar took the right approach in courting Tesla and that Malaysia is in a strategic position to grow the domestic EV ecosystem moving forward, despite Tesla’s decision to pull back from further factory expansion.

The first point of note is that Anwar did the right thing from an optics and a policy perspective to engage Musk publicly in July 2023 to invite Tesla to start selling their vehicles in Malaysia and to invite Starlink to offer their services domestically.