Biden notes Tesla is the country's 'largest electric-vehicle manufacturer' after Elon Musk called him a 'damp sock puppet in human form'

• Biden on Tuesday acknowledged Tesla was the country's "largest electric-vehicle manufacturer."
• For months, Biden has faced calls to include Tesla in the national EV conversation.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday called Tesla the country's "largest electric-vehicle manufacturer" after facing repeated calls to acknowledge the company as a leader in the automotive and clean-energy industries.

During a speech focused on boosting domestic electric-vehicle manufacturing, Biden spoke of Tesla's influence on the industry — a departure from his usual praise for legacy automakers like Ford and General Motors.

The president said over $200 billion in manufacturing investments had been greenlighted by companies since last year. He also announced the Australian company Tritium would construct a plant in Tennessee and produce up to 30,000 electric-vehicle chargers annually.

"Since 2021, companies have announced investments totaling more than $200 billion in domestic manufacturing here in America," he said. "From iconic companies like GM and Ford building out new electric-vehicle production to Tesla, our nation's largest electric-vehicle manufacturer, to innovative, younger companies like Rivian building electric trucks or Proterra building electric buses."

—Cheddar News (@cheddar) February 8, 2022

Late last month, a Change.org petition was launched to prod Biden to say "Tesla" and include the company in his push for electric-vehicle manufacturing throughout the country.

The petition has since received nearly 59,000 signatures.

For months, Tesla CEO Elon Musk criticized Biden for not including the company in the larger national conversation about electric vehicles. Last month, the billionaire on Twitter called Biden "a damp sock puppet in human form."

After Biden tweeted last month that "companies like GM and Ford are building more electric vehicles here at home than ever before," while appearing with General Motors CEO Mary Barra, Musk responded to his company's absence from the discussion.

"Starts with a T, Ends with an A, ESL in the middle," he wrote.

Musk has been critical of Biden in the past, calling for lawmakers to tank the Build Back Better Act — the seemingly doomed Democratic-led social-spending framework — while saying the president is "controlled by unions."

The CEO's opinion of Biden has deteriorated markedly since last year.

At the start of Biden's presidency in January 2021, Musk told Fortune he was amped up about the new administration's push to tackle the climate crisis.

"I'm super fired up that the new administration is focused on climate," he said at the time.