Elon Musk Says He Will Personally Review Tesla's Cobalt Supply Chain Audit To Extend Consumer Trust

Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk on Thursday said that he will personally review the third-party audit of its cobalt supply chain.

What Happened: “And I will review the audit personally,’ Musk said. “If you drive a Tesla, you should be able to believe in it to your core.”

Though shareholders rejected the proposal for a third-party audit of the cobalt supply chain, Musk confirmed at the shareholder meeting on Tuesday that Tesla would indeed conduct an audit.

“We will do a third party audit. In fact, we’ll put a webcam on the mine and if anybody sees any children please let us know,” Musk said.

Musk added that most Tesla battery packs are either iron or nickel-based and use only a little cobalt as a binder as opposed to phone batteries which are 100% cobalt. “I recommend complaining to the phone manufacturers,” Musk said. “But even for the small amount of cobalt that we do use we will make sure that no child labor is being exploited,” Musk said, while adding that Tesla cares a lot about “doing the right things.”

Why It Matters: At the meeting, Courtney Wicks of the Investor Advocates for Social Justice urged Tesla to support a third-party audit to address concerns about human rights violations and child labor at Cobalt mines.

Children are employed in cobalt mines with no protective equipment and in spaces prone to collapsing, leaving them severely injured or killed in the mining process, Wicks said.

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