Elon Musk condemns the 'perversion of democracy' in Texas

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk is not at all pleased with lawmakers in Texas.

"If the public is overwhelmingly in favor of something and then the legislators vote against the overwhelming public interest, that is a perversion of democracy," he recently told ABC News. "I mean, the whole idea of democracy is you vote for people and they carry out the will of the people. In this case, they're not doing that because the car dealers are such huge contributors to their political campaigns on the local level."

Tesla sells its cars directly to consumers, but state law currently prohibits Tesla from operating its own a dealership. Car makers are not allowed to sell vehicles directly to the public in Texas, they must sell through independently-owned franchises.

Gov. Rick Perry told Musk he supported legislation that would have allowed electric car makers to sell directly to consumers, but the bill died in the state legislature.

“This happens all the time,” said Bill Wolters, the president of the Texas Automobile Dealers Association, which lobbied against the bill. “Someone wants an exception to the franchise laws. If we made an exception for everybody that showed up in the legislature, before long the integrity of the entire franchise system is in peril.”

Watch video, uploaded to YouTube, below: