A retro-futuristic diner is rising on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, Calif. Curved, silvery and flanked by two outdoor film screens, it looks as if a flying saucer had sailed out of a 1950s drive-in movie and come to rest in the parking lot.
An opening date has not been announced, but Tesla’s all-night diner, theater and charging station is clearly on its way. Which means that the company’s leader, Elon Musk, is about to enter the hospitality business.
In 2023, when Mr. Musk posted on X that Tesla would build a diner in Los Angeles, he described it as “Grease meets Jetsons with Supercharging.” As he has often done, he put his finger on a major piece of culture ripe for reinvention — in this case, gas-station dining in the age of electric cars, which need longer to recharge than it takes to top off a tank — and put a visionary, gee-whiz spin on it.
That was before the chain saw. Before DOGE and the “fork in the road” email and the what-did-you-do-last-week email. Before anti-Musk protests at Tesla dealerships became weekly occurrences in Los Angeles and other cities. Before the White House promised to treat vandalism against Teslas as domestic terrorism. Before a 50 percent drop in Tesla’s stock price took shareholders on a fast ride from “gee-whiz” to “look out below.”
All of which have made Tesla’s foray into restaurants a far more loaded prospect than it seemed a short time ago.