Musk calls coronavirus shelter-in-place orders ‘fascist’

Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk Wednesday called statewide shelter-in-place orders that have shuttered his Fremont, Calif., factory and prevented a first-quarter delivery record “fascist,” dropping multiple expletives and railing against what he called an infringement on individual freedoms.

Musk, on the company’s first-quarter earnings call with journalists, unloaded on his state’s current order for people to remain in homes to halt the spread of the coronavirus, which has killed more than 61,000 people nationwide.

“Frankly, I would call it forcibly imprisoning people in their homes against all their constitutional rights, in my opinion,” he said. “Breaking peoples’ freedoms in ways that are horrible and wrong and not why people came to America or built this country. What the f***?”

Musk argued people shouldn’t be told to remain in their homes.

“This is fascist,” he said. “This isn’t democratic. This isn’t freedom. Give people back their goddamn freedom.”

Earlier in the day, Musk tweeted “FREE AMERICA NOW.”