Tesla in Saudi Arabia: Is Musk’s Feud With Al Rumayyan Over? Why is Elon Musk opening up a Tesla shop or opening up shop in Riyadh? The Saudi Arabian consumer market isn’t a big one. So what is he trying to achieve?
I think there’s a couple of significant things here. I think the probably the most significant part of this is this isn’t going to be a big move for Tesla. You know, I don’t think we’re going to see hundreds of thousands of Teslas being sold in Saudi Arabia very quickly.
But you know, I think what it does signal is that this long running spat that Elon Musk has with the Saudis will remain just on the screens, just that in the photos, the two of them spectacularly fell out awhile ago over a plan to take Tesla private.
A lot of the text messages between the two of them came out in a court case related to that deal and it really showed that the two had had really falling out pretty spectacularly. And as a result of that, the PIF then went off and backed Lucid instead of rival electric carmaker and has poured billions into them to try and make them into a rival for Tesla, perhaps not as successfully as the Saudis might have hoped.
But you know, now of course Elon’s star has been well, his political style has been rising, even if Tesla’s stock has not been doing so well over the past six months or so because of his ties to the Trump administration. And so the Saudis, I think, have really wanted to try and fix that relationship with Elon Musk.
And this is the latest sign Tesla coming into the Saudi market is the latest sign that the Saudi-Elon relationship is back on track and perhaps setting the opportunity for further collaboration in the future.
and of course let’s not forget that President Trump’s first foreign visit is going to be to the GCC in a couple of weeks time. So with that in mind, let me just ask you what this business decision out of Elon Musk and for Tesla means for the rollout of EVs in general in Saudi Arabia. You mentioned the penetration of some of those Chinese automakers. They’re now going to have competition from Tesla.
I mean, I think you know I guess for Tesla, this is probably one of the last big major economies that they don’t have an entry into. But it’s not going to be like a lot of North American or European countries where there is much higher emission standards, where fuel is a lot more expensive.
I mean, I’m sitting in a country now where it’s still very, very cheap to fill up your gas guzzling SUV. And so that is there. The most of the cars that are on the streets. We’re also seeing in if you look around the streets of Riyadh now, there’s been a big push towards cheap Chinese cars.
The Chinese have really been making a big, big effort into growing the market here. So Tesla, look, I’m sure there’s a niche for Tesla that people are going to want that sort of luxury EV market, but it’s not going to be huge. And I think you know we’ll will continue to see like in other markets around the world, companies like BYD are going to really give them a run for their money in terms of sales.
Source: raialkhalij + aljazeera