FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk is scheduled to visit the group’s planned gigafactory near Berlin, a state minister said, shortly after the factory’s opening was pushed back to late 2021.
“We have been informed by @Tesla on Friday, May 14th, that a visit of @elonmusk of Gruenheide was expected to happen,” Joerg Steinbach, Economy Minister of the German state of Brandenburg, where the plant is being built, said in a tweet https://twitter.com/joergstb/status/1394031683922399234 late on Sunday.
“As the purpose of this visit is mainly technical in character political meetings with (state premier) #Woidke or myself have not been scheduled.”
German newspaper Tagesspiegel said that Musk had landed in Berlin late on Sunday.
Tesla declined to comment.
Tesla last month delayed the opening of its first European gigafactory, located in Gruenheide outside Berlin, to late 2021 from an initial July 1 date, because of lengthy approval processes and fresh plans to also establish a battery cell plant on site.
(Reporting by Nadine Schimroszik; Writing by Christoph Steitz; editing by Barbara Lewis)
