Elon Musk once wanted a “popular uprising” against fossil fuels, but as he has aligned himself with the political right, his views on the climate crisis have changed as well.
A more budget-friendly car had long been part of Musk’s plan for Tesla to fight the climate crisis by “accelerat[ing] the world’s transition to sustainable energy.” But as Tesla executives gathered in Palo Alto, California, earlier this year to pitch Musk, the billionaire rejected the idea, according to The Washington Post.
Musk instead went ahead with a deal worth billions to buy computer chips to improve Tesla’s luxury vehicles. The discussions over what was known as the Tesla Model 2 reveal the change in Musk’s approach to the climate crisis as he becomes more and more embedded in President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team.
His change could help boost measures in the nation’s capital against clean energy and possibly even against electric cars.
Musk called for a “popular uprising” against the fossil fuel industry in a film released in 2016, the year Trump was first elected to the White House. The world is “unavoidably headed toward some level of harm and the sooner we can take action, the less harm will result,” he told actor Leonardo DiCaprio at the time.
“Tesla is working hard to help stop global warming,” he tweeted in 2019, also telling followers that the world was heading toward a “climate change meltdown.”
All PowerPoint presentations at Tesla had to include data from former Vice President Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth pointing to rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to remind employees of Tesla’s goals, according to The Post. But the information from the film is no longer required in the presentations.
The climate crisis also appears to have dropped significantly as a priority for Musk. In August, he took part in a live stream on X with Trump, in which he said, “We don’t need to rush” to solve the climate issue. He also said that efforts to address climate change should take place without “demonizing people” and that “It’s not like the house is on fire immediately.”
While those close to Musk told The Post that he still thinks the climate crisis is a problem, he now believes that the risks of climate disasters have been overblown.
“Global warming risk is overblown in the short term, but significant in the long term,” he wrote on X in May last year.
Five people told the paper that his views have been affected by a right-wing media universe online and from his time in Texas.
More recently, he’s grown fond of technological solutions to the climate crisis, including nuclear power and carbon capture. He’s now rarely seen talking about the climate crisis as a looming problem. Now, he is more focused on seeing robotics, AI, addressing population decline and getting to Mars as more important to human survival.
Some executives at Tesla have left the business amid Musk’s change of heart, and Trump has campaigned on ending the electric vehicle tax credit which has been a boost for the company’s business. Musk has also noted that the tax credit will have to be removed. But he’s set to argue to Trump that he should help all his business ventures, such as SpaceX and Starlink, not simply focus on Tesla, one person told The Post.
The change in Musk’s views has been taking place over the course of years, five people told the paper, adding it comes after fights with environmentalists, a strained relationship with the Biden administration and a shift to the right in his views tied to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“He used to be a Democrat who believed everything he was told was true about this,” one person told the paper. “And now he thinks for himself and realizes, yes, climate change is real, but it’s not nearly among the top problems right now.”
In 2020, the pandemic began to change Musk’s views as lockdowns forced the closure of Tesla’s main plant. Musk began tearing down mask mandate posters, The Post noted.
Musk revealed in May 2020 that Tesla headquarters was leaving California. Musk’s transgender daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson received gender-affirming care around that same time, with those close to Musk saying that he was distraught at her transition.
The pandemic and his daughter’s gender transition both pushed him to turn against Democrats and everything they stand for, including their views on climate change.
“Anything the left saying [was] conspiratorial and bulls***,” one person told The Post.
The following year, Musk grew irate after Tesla wasn’t invited to an EV summit at the White House.
Musk began discussing climate issues with others who held skeptical views of climate predictions, such as Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Musk associate Robert Zubrin told the paper: “He decided he would join this camp, and this was more important than the whole climate cause. He decided to go all in,” Zubrin said. “And I guess in one sense, that is characteristic Musk – When he decides to do something, he goes all in.”
Last year, Musk met entrepreneur and 2024 primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. The duo is now in charge of the outside commission the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, set to recommend drastic cuts to the federal government.
In a taste of what’s to come, last month Musk reposted the names and titles of four people with low-profile climate-related jobs in the government, prompting negative attention with at least one of the four women removing her social media accounts.
