WIRED has long written about Elon Musk, he of electric cars, space rockets, tunnel boring machines, implantable brain interfaces, the Mars mission, and Internet trash-posting. He has always been unpredictable. And yet the most shocking part of his two-hour interview with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, streamed live on X earlier this week, may have been what Musk said: No say.
It happened about 50 minutes in, during a very Trump-esque discussion of gas and electricity prices. They had gone up nationally, Trump said, but “when that goes down, we’re going to drill, we’re going to drill.”
The siren song of the oil and gas industry! Literally: Drill, baby, drill.And Musk, he of the electric cars and the — I’ll say it again — “save the world” charade, didn’t speak until two minutes later, when he suggested that Trump set up a “government efficiency commission” to rein in government spending. Later, he and Trump had a brief exchange about the science of climate change. But Musk was at pains to emphasize that the oil and gas industry is not the problem. “I’m pro-environment, but … I don’t think we should vilify the oil and gas industry, because they’re the ones keeping civilization going right now,” he said.
This struck me as a radical shift. Musk has spent much of his career presenting himself as an environmentalist, sometimes going so far as to paint himself as the only man standing between the world and disaster. He has told the story of Tesla, in particular, as a hero’s journey to save the world by transitioning to a sustainable energy economy. “I think I’m objectively one of the world’s leading environmentalists in terms of getting things done,” he said. at an Italian political event last December.
In 2017, Musk he told Rolling Stone Musk has also spoken about the clear existential threat of climate change in a style that still rings familiar. “Climate change is the biggest threat facing humanity in this century, except for AI,” he said. “I keep telling people this. I hate to be Cassandra here, but it’s all fun and games until someone loses a damn eye. This view[of climate change]is shared by almost everyone who is not crazy in the scientific community.” regularly He accused critics of carrying water for “fossil fuel companies.”
Oh, and remember that time (June 2017) when Musk… Three of Trump’s presidential advisers resigned What happened after the US withdrew from the Paris climate accords? “Climate change is real,” he said. tweeted At that point, “leaving Paris is not good for the United States or the world.”
Musk’s unclear new approach to climate also reflects not only his very open support for far-right politics but also a new story he’s telling about Tesla. Over the past few years, and especially as the debate over artificial intelligence has reached a fever pitch, Musk has positioned his electric carmaker as a pioneer in robotic intelligence, too. In 2019, Musk announced that Tesla would have 1 million robotaxis on the road by the end of the year. (It didn’t.) More recently, Tesla has reportedly shifted resources from building a more affordable electric car, the fabled Model 2, to launching a purpose-built robotaxi, even though the company has yet to reveal any actual self-driving technology. (A reveal event is scheduled for October.) Musk has repeatedly said that Tesla is an AI and robotics company and investors should value it as such. If Musk backs off his endorsement of climate change science, it’s reasonable to wonder whether that ties into his marketing pivot for the world’s most valuable auto company.