/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24090220/STK171_VRG_Illo_2_Normand_ElonMusk_02.jpg?w=1536&resize=1536,0&ssl=1 "Elon Musk tells Donald Trump ‘we should not vilify the oil and fuel trade’")
International Courant
Elon Musk, who famously owns an electrical car firm and has stated he desires to maneuver humanity to “a sustainable vitality civilization,” advised former President Donald Trump throughout an interview on X that “we should not vilify the oil and fuel trade.”
Musk interviewed Trump on his social media platform, the place the livestream was delayed over 40 minutes resulting from technical difficulties. After lengthy, rambling discussions about immigration, inflation, and international coverage, Musk and Trump lastly got here to the topic of vitality and local weather change — the place Musk surprisingly got here to the protection of the fossil gasoline trade.
“I do not assume we should always vilify the oil and fuel trade and the individuals who have labored very onerous in these industries to supply the required vitality to help the financial system,” Musk stated.
“Individuals who have labored very onerous in these industries”
The Tesla CEO, who described his views as “fairly reasonable” on vitality regardless of proudly owning an EV and residential vitality firm, claimed the financial system “would collapse” if oil and fuel corporations have been pressured to shutdown. Musk additionally stated that the planet can transition to a sustainable vitality financial system in “50 or 100 years” — regardless of the scientific group warning that humanity is shortly reaching a tipping level on the local weather. (Trump later modified it to “500 to 1000 years,” which Musk didn’t right.)
“So it isn’t like the home is on fireplace instantly,” Musk stated. “However I feel it’s one thing we have to transfer in the direction of… It is in all probability higher to maneuver there quicker than slower. However like with out vilifying the oil and fuel trade and with out inflicting hardship within the brief time period.”
However he shortly contradicted himself. Musk acknowledged that the air will turn into more durable to breathe with the continued use of fossil fuels, inflicting individuals “complications and nausea.” However that was no motive to shortly transition away from the usage of planet-heating fuels. Based on Musk, we will casually stroll right into a extra sustainable future.
“We nonetheless have fairly a little bit of time,” he stated. “We needn’t rush.”
Trump, who typically seemed like he was slurring his phrases, quipped that rising sea ranges means individuals would have extra “oceanfront property.” That remark was shortly blasted out by Vice President Kamala Harris’ marketing campaign.
Trump then briefly touched on one in every of his favourite subjects, electrical automobiles, claiming that fossil fuel-powered vitality technology is what powers Tesla’s automobiles. “(We) cannot get away from it at this second,” he stated.
However the EV dialogue did not go a lot additional than that, regardless of Trump’s vows to finish subsidies for plug-in vehicles that would significantly affect Tesla’s gross sales. Trump urged Musk to place photo voltaic panels on the roof of his vehicles. (Tesla filed a patent for a photo voltaic panel-covered tonneau cowl for the Cybertruck, however did not comply with by.)
“Individuals discuss world warming, or they discuss local weather change, however they by no means discuss nuclear warming,” Trump stated. “An instantaneous downside.”
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