WIRED has long written about Elon Musk, the man of electric cars, space rockets, tunnel boring machines, implantable brain interfaces, Mars missions, and internet shitposting. 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 said not participation.
It happened around the 50-minute mark, during a very Trumpian discussion about gas and electricity prices. They had gone up nationwide, Trump said, but “if that goes down and [sic] We're gonna drill, baby, drill.”
The siren song of the oil and gas industry! Literally: Drill, baby, drill! And Musk, of the—let me repeat—electric cars and “saving the world” gimmick, didn’t show up until two minutes later, when he suggested that Trump create a “government efficiency commission” to curb government spending. Later, he and Trump had a brief conversation about the science of climate change. But Musk took pains to emphasize that the oil and gas industry isn’t the problem. “I’m pro-environment, but … I don’t think we should be badmouthing the oil and gas industry because they’re the ones keeping civilization going right now,” he said.
It felt like a farewell. Musk has spent much of his career portraying himself as an environmentalist, sometimes going so far as to paint himself as the one man standing between the world and disaster. He has told Tesla’s story in particular as a hero’s journey to save the world by transitioning to a sustainable energy economy. “I think I am objectively one of the world’s leading environmentalists in terms of doing things,” he said at an Italian political event last December.
In 2017, Musk told Rolling Stone about the clear existential threat of climate change with a flair that still feels familiar. “Climate change is the single greatest threat facing humanity this century, other than AI,” he said. “I keep telling people this. I hate to be Cassandra, but it's all fun and games until someone loses a fucking eye. This view [of climate change] is shared by almost everyone who isn't crazy in the scientific community.” Musk has also frequently accused critics of carrying water for “fossil fuel companies.”
Oh, and remember that time (June 2017) Musk left three Trump presidential councils after the US withdrew from the Paris climate accords? “Climate change is real,” he tweeted at the time. “Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.”
Musk’s newer, more lax approach to climate reflects not only his outspoken embrace of far-right politics, but also a new narrative he’s telling about Tesla. Over the past few years, and especially as talk of artificial intelligence has reached a fever pitch, Musk has also positioned his electric carmaker as a pioneer in robotic intelligence. In 2019, Musk announced that Tesla would have 1 million robotaxis on the road by the end of the year. (It didn’t happen.) More recently, Tesla is said to have shifted resources from building a more affordable electric car, the mythical Model 2, to releasing a purpose-built robotaxi, though the company has yet to unveil any true self-driving technology. (A reveal event is scheduled for October.) Musk has repeatedly said that Tesla is an AI and robotics company and should be valued as such by investors. If Musk is backing off his support for climate change science, it’s fair to wonder if that’s tied to his marketing spin for the world’s most valuable car company.
