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Tesla finds support as Bay Area Council urges Alameda County to reopen Fremont factory
Tesla and CEO Elon Musk’s efforts to reopen the Fremont factory as soon as possible has received some support from the Bay Area Council. In a recent press release, the Council urged Alameda County’s health officials to work with Tesla to ensure that the Fremont factory can resume its operations in a manner that is safe and efficient.
The Bay Area Council’s press release was issued following Elon Musk’s tweets over the weekend, which included a lawsuit against Alameda County for allegedly blocking Tesla’s efforts to reopen the Fremont factory, the company’s lone vehicle production plant in the US. This was despite Tesla’s intentions to adopt stringent safety procedures that are modeled after its successful anti-COVID-19 strategies in Gigafactory Shanghai.
The Bay Area Council’s press release highlighted that the decision of Alameda’s health officials to keep the Fremont factory shut down came after the State of California moved to Stage 2 of its COVID-19 response, which allowed businesses such as manufacturers to resume operations, provided that they adopt strict safety standards. Tesla has discussed its stringent safety initiatives in a Return-to-Work Playbook.
President and CEO of the Bay Area Council Jim Wunderman shared his insights on Tesla’s electric vehicle production facility and its ongoing struggles against the Alameda County health officials. Wunderman explained that a strong signal must be sent to businesses and the millions of workers affected by the shutdown that the Bay Area and the state are eager to return to work, especially considering the historic economic pain that will be brought about by the pandemic.
“California and the Bay Area are demonstrating every day that we can protect public health and reopen our economy at the same time. We strongly urge Alameda County public health officials to work with Tesla and other employers in figuring out a plan that can allow them to safely resume operations sooner rather than later. We must send a strong signal to businesses and the millions of workers who have lost their jobs that the Bay Area and California are just as eager to restart our economy and get people back to work as we are to stamp out this pandemic.
“The economic pain from this shutdown is historic, profound and intense, and is taking a huge toll on state and local government budgets that is going to reverberate for years to come. California has already signaled by moving to Stage 2 that the difficult actions we’ve taken to combat COVID-19 are working, and we’re confident that Alameda County can follow the same path,” the Bay Area Council President and CEO said.
Tesla’s intentions to resume operations at the Fremont factory has received varied responses. Apart from the Bay Area Council, the mayors of the City of Fremont and the City of Palo Alto have extended their support for Tesla. On the other hand, other politicians such as CA Assemblywoman Lorena S. Gonzales have opted for a much more negative response, saying “F*ck Elon Musk” on Twitter.
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Anti-Tesla union leader ditches X, urges use of Threads instead
Tesla Sweden and IF Metall have been engaged in a bitter dispute for over two years now.
Marie Nilsson, chair of Sweden’s IF Metall union and a prominent critic of Tesla, has left X and is urging audiences to follow the union on Meta’s Threads instead.
Tesla Sweden and IF Metall have been engaged in a bitter dispute for over two years now.
Anti-Tesla union leader exits X
In a comment to Dagens Arbete (DA), Nilsson noted that her exit from X is not formally tied to IF Metall’s long-running labor dispute with Tesla Sweden. Still, she stated that her departure is affected by changes to the platform under Elon Musk’s leadership.
“We have stayed because many journalists pick up news there. But as more and more people have left X, we have felt that the standard has now been reached on that platform,” she said.
Jesper Pettersson, press officer at IF Metall, highlighted that the union’s departure from X is only indirectly linked to Tesla Sweden and Elon Musk. “Indirectly it does, since there is a lot of evidence that his ownership has caused the change in the platform to be so significant.
“We have nevertheless assessed that the platform had value for reaching journalists, politicians and other opinion leaders. But it is a microscopic proportion of the public and our members who are there, and now that value has decreased,” Petterson added.
IF Metall sees Threads as an X alternative
After leaving X, IF Metall has begun using Threads, Meta’s alternative to the social media platform. The union described the move as experimental, noting that it is still evaluating how effective the platform will be for outreach and visibility.
Pettersson acknowledged that Meta also does not operate under Sweden’s collective bargaining model, but said the union sees little alternative if it wants to remain visible online.
“In a perfect world, all large international companies would be supporters of the Swedish model when they come here. But unfortunately, the reality is not like that. If we are to be visible at all in this social media world, we have to play by the rules of the game. The alternative would be to become completely invisible, and that would not benefit our members,” he said.
Despite many recent rumors and various reports, Elon Musk confirmed today that SpaceX is not developing a phone based on Starlink, not once, but twice.
Today’s report from Reuters cited people familiar with the matter and stated internal discussions have seen SpaceX executives mulling the idea of building a mobile device that would connect directly to the Starlink satellite constellation.
Musk did state in late January that SpaceX developing a phone was “not out of the question at some point.” However, He also said it would have to be a major difference from current phones, and would be optimized “purely for running max performance/watt neural nets.”
Not out of the question at some point. It would be a very different device than current phones. Optimized purely for running max performance/watt neural nets.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 30, 2026
While Musk said it was not out of the question “at some point,” that does not mean it is currently a project SpaceX is working on. The CEO reaffirmed this point twice on X this afternoon.
Musk said, “Reuters lies relentlessly,” in one post. In the next, he explicitly stated, “We are not developing a phone.”
Reuters lies relentlessly
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 5, 2026
We are not developing a phone
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 5, 2026
Musk has basically always maintained that SpaceX has too many things going on, denying that a phone would be in the realm of upcoming projects. There are too many things in the works for Musk’s space exploration company, most notably the recent merger with xAI.
SpaceX officially acquires xAI, merging rockets with AI expertise
A Starlink phone would be an excellent idea, especially considering that SpaceX operates 9,500 satellites, serving over 9 million users worldwide. 650 of those satellites are dedicated to the company’s direct-to-device initiative, which provides cellular coverage on a global scale.
Nevertheless, there is the potential that the Starlink phone eventually become a project SpaceX works on. However, it is not currently in the scope of what the company needs to develop, so things are more focused on that as of right now.
Tesla has added a notable improvement to its Dashcam feature after complaints from owners have pushed the company to make a drastic change.
Perhaps one of the biggest frustrations that Tesla owners have communicated regarding the Dashcam feature is the lack of ability to retain any more than 60 minutes of driving footage before it is overwritten.
It does not matter what size USB jump drive is plugged into the vehicle. 60 minutes is all it will hold until new footage takes over the old. This can cause some issues, especially if you were saving an impressive clip of Full Self-Driving or an incident on the road, which could be lost if new footage was recorded.
This has now been changed, as Tesla has shown in the Release Notes for an upcoming Software Update in China. It will likely expand to the U.S. market in the coming weeks, and was first noticed by NotaTeslaApp.
The release notes state:
“Dashcam Dynamic Recording Duration – The dashcam dynamically adjusts the recording duration based on the available storage capacity of the connected USB drive. For example, with a 128 GB USB drive, the maximum recording duration is approximately 3 hours; with a 1 TB or larger USB drive, it can reach up to 24 hours. This ensures that as much video as possible is retained for review before it gets overwritten.”
Tesla Adds Dynamic Recording
Instead of having a 60-minute cap, the new system will now go off the memory in the USB drive. This means with:
- 128 GB Jump Drive – Up to Three Hours of Rolling Footage
- 1TB Jump Drive – Up to 24 Hours of Rolling Footage
This is dependent on the amount of storage available on the jump drive, meaning that if there are other things saved on it, it will take away from the amount of footage that can be retained.
While the feature is just now making its way to employees in China, it will likely be at least several weeks before it makes its way to the U.S., but owners should definitely expect it in the coming months.
It will be a welcome feature, especially as there will now be more customization to the number of clips and their duration that can be stored.
Anti-Tesla union leader ditches X, urges use of Threads instead
Elon Musk confirms SpaceX is not developing a phone
