A council in South Australia has backed a proposal for a Tesla factory in southern Adelaide despite huge resistance from the local community, mostly centred around Elon Musk.

City of Marion councillors on Tuesday night voted to support a proposal to sell more than 2,500 sqm of council-owned land to a developer who plans to bring in Tesla as a lead tenant.

Tesla plans to develop a purpose-built facility on the land, focusing on battery repurposing, vehicle servicing and showroom functions.

The South Australian Tesla factory is now one step closer to getting the green light, with the council to now ask the state government for approval.

The City Of Marion decided to support the Tesla plan despite receiving more than 900 submissions railing against it, many from members of the local community.

Much of the backlash against the plan centred on Tesla’s controversial CEO Elon Musk and his role in the Trump administration in the US, while concerns were also made about the removal of trees and the factory’s environmental impact.

Many submissions contained language that was redacted by the local council, while others referenced Musk’s infamous salute and his close alignment to US President Donald Trump.

‘We don’t want Tesla’

Nearly a third of the submissions received by the council conveyed “strong ideological opposition to Elon Musk and Tesla”, it said.

“Elon Musk is portrayed by a few submitters as an inappropriate figurehead for projects within environmentally or socially conscious communities,” a report prepared by the council said.

The council received 948 submissions on the matter, and just 5 per cent supported the plan. Of these submissions, just over 40 per cent came from residents of the council area.

“We don’t want Tesla in our area,” one submission said.

“I do not want to live in a suburb who sells out to profit a man who did a [redacted] salute and who only has his own [redacted] interests at heart,” another submission, which was redacted by the council, said.

Musk has been at the centre of controversy since he took on the role leading Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and much of the backlash has been targeted at his many companies.

The billionaire has flagged that he plans to pull back from this role and focus on Tesla, after the company’s quarterly profits dropped by more than 70 per cent.

One submission said that all Australian governments should be “rejecting Tesla as a company until Tesla stops espousing right wing rhetoric”, while another said South Australia should not support an “oligarch [to] make more money in Australia while he is dismantling US democracy”.

Another local said they would be “disgusted” if the council supported the Tesla proposal.

Council pushes ahead

But the councillors rejected these concerns and voted to support the Tesla factory.

“While several objections to the proposal refer to ideological opposition to Elon Musk or Tesla’s global position, these do not directly undermine the local merits of the developer’s proposal,” the council’s report said.

“When evaluated in terms of tangible, local economic and environmental outcomes, the project’s benefits of employment, innovation, emissions reduction and utilisation of land that is contaminated and not fit for current purpose, outweigh the geopolitical or symbolic criticisms expressed in submissions.”

The council said that the public land in question has not been used since 2016 due to contamination, and the development would create about 100 full-time jobs and create a $56 million economic output.

Musk has clashed with the federal government over its big tech policies and the eSafety Commissioner’s attempt to get posts removed from X.

Just this week, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) formally warned another of Musk’s companies, Starlink, after it missed four key reporting deadlines.

According to ACMA, Starlink failed to provide details of customer complaints four times between October 2023 and July 2024.