WIRED has long covered Elon Musk — the man who knows electric cars, space rockets, tunneling machines, implantable brain interfaces, Mars missions, and internet shitposting — and he’s always been unpredictable. And yet the most shocking part of his two-hour interview with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, broadcast live on X earlier this week, may have been what Musk NO to talk.
It happened around the 50th minute of a very Trumpian discussion about gas and electricity prices. Trump said they had gone up nationwide, but “when will it come down and [sic] “We’re gonna drill, baby, drill.”
The Siren Song of the Oil and Gas Industry! Literally: Drill, baby, drill! And Musk, the man of — I’ll say it again — electric cars and “saving the world,” didn’t say a word for a full two minutes when he suggested Trump should create a “government efficiency commission” to rein in government spending. He and Trump later exchanged brief remarks about the science of climate change. But Musk was at pains to emphasize that the oil and gas industry was not the problem. “I’m an environmentalist, but … I don’t think we should denigrate the oil and gas industry, because it’s the industry that sustains civilization right now,” he said.
It felt like a departure. Musk has spent much of his career casting himself as an environmentalist, sometimes going so far as to portray himself as the only man standing between the world and catastrophe. He has told Tesla’s story, in particular, as a hero who saves the world by moving to a sustainable energy economy. “I think I’m objectively one of the leading environmentalists in the world in terms of action,” he said. at an Italian political event in December last year.
In 2017, Musk Rolling Stone said about the clear existential threat of climate change with a note that still feels familiar. “Climate change is the single biggest threat humanity faces this century, outside of artificial intelligence,” he said. “I tell people this all the time. I don’t want to be Cassandra, but it’s all fun and games until someone loses a fucking eye. That view [of climate change] shared by almost everyone who isn’t crazy in the scientific community.” Musk also has regularly accused critics carrying water for “fossil fuel companies”.
Do you remember that time (June 2017) when Musk resigned from three Trump presidential councils after US withdraws from Paris climate accords? ‘Climate change is real,’ he said he tweeted at that time. “Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.”
Musk’s newer, more nebulous approach to climate reflects not only his much-vocal support for far-right politics but also a recent story he’s telling about Tesla. Over the past few years, and especially as the conversation about artificial intelligence has reached a fever pitch, Musk has positioned his electric car maker as a pioneer in robotic intelligence. In 2019, Musk announced that Tesla would have 1 million robot taxis 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 mythical Model 2, to launching a purpose-built robot taxi, even though the company has yet to reveal any real autonomous-driving technology. (An unveiling event is scheduled for October.) Musk has repeatedly said that Tesla is an AI and robotics company and should be valued by investors as such. If Musk is backing off from his support for climate change science, it’s fair to ask whether it has something to do with his shift in marketing strategy for the world’s most valuable car company.