Tesla recently repaid $452 million loan to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
Tesla labeled itself as “the only American car company to have fully repaid the government.”
Chrysler is not agreed this. “Not exactly, Tesla,” Chrysler says.
According to Chrysler, it repaid $7.6 billion in federal loans in 2011. Tesla’s “information is unmistakably incorrect,” Chrysler said in a blog post. “Question: short memory or short-circuit?”
Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk defends the company’s claim: Tesla is “the only American car company to have fully repaid the government.”
Musk said Chrysler could not be counted as a U.S. car company because it is a division of Fiat. According to Musk, Chrysler never fully repaid its loans.
The U.S. Treasury Department committed a total of $12.5 billion to Chrysler. The “good” assets of Chrysler were used to form the current company, while billions of dollars of federal loans were left to another entity dubbed “Old Chrysler.”
The U.S. government recouped about $11.2 billion of its funds. In 2011, treasury said it is unlikely to fully recover $1.3 billion owed by Old Chrysler.
“More importantly, Chrysler failed to pay back $1.3B,” Musk said on Twitter. “Apart those 2 points, you were totally 1st.”
Source: Reuters via NBC News
