Ever imagine a White House event hyping electric vehicles but ghosting the biggest name in the biz -- sounds like a plot twist, doesn’t it?

In a bold move, Kamala Harris has publicly rebuked President Joe Biden for failing to invite Tesla CEO Elon Musk to a 2021 White House event centered on electric vehicles, branding it a costly misjudgment with lingering consequences, as Fox News reports.

Let’s turn back the clock to August 2021, when Biden hosted a high-profile gathering at the White House to spotlight the electric vehicle revolution, rolling out the welcome mat for leaders from General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis.

High-profile EV event with notable absence

One name was glaringly absent from the roster: Elon Musk, even though Tesla stood tall as the nation’s top EV manufacturer during that period.

The administration’s reasoning was crystal clear—they emphasized that the invited companies were significant employers of United Auto Workers, a not-so-subtle nod to their commitment to organized labor.

Since Tesla operates with a non-unionized workforce, the decision to exclude them seemed less about innovation and more about pandering to union interests, a choice that didn’t sit right with many observers.

Union bias or political fumble?

Then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki danced around questions regarding whether Tesla’s non-union status was the root of the snub, leaving the public to draw their own conclusions about the administration’s priorities.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Biden officials later offered an apology to Musk for the oversight, but the gesture did little to smooth over the evident friction that had already taken hold.

Musk, never one to mince words, took to social media with a biting remark: "Yeah, seems odd that Tesla wasn’t invited," a statement that cut straight to the heart of the apparent absurdity.

Harris delivers stinging critique

More recently, Harris tackled this controversy head-on during an interview at the Most Powerful Women Summit in Washington, D.C., pulling no punches in her assessment of the situation.

Referencing her memoir 107 Days, she told Fortune editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell, "I write in the book that I thought it was a big mistake to not invite Elon Musk when we did a big EV event."

She insisted that dismissing Musk, a pioneer in the EV space, was a decision that “simply doesn’t make sense” when the goal should be to champion American innovation over petty political posturing.

Long-term fallout from short-sighted move

Harris didn’t stop there, pointing out that the exclusion likely struck Musk on a deeply personal level, possibly reshaping his perspective on the administration in ways that couldn’t be easily mended.

While Biden’s team may have believed they were strengthening ties with union supporters, they seemingly failed to calculate the broader cost of turning away a visionary whose contributions to technology are undeniable.

Isn’t it a bitter irony that an event meant to accelerate progress in the EV sector ended up creating a divide as wide as a highway, reminding us that in the political arena, a single oversight can fuel a feud for years to come?