Elon Musk tells Donald Trump ‘we shouldn’t vilify the oil and fuel trade’

Elon Musk, who famously owns an electrical automobile firm and has mentioned he desires to maneuver humanity to “a sustainable vitality civilization,” informed former President Donald Trump throughout an interview on X that “we shouldn’t vilify the oil and fuel trade.”

Musk interviewed Trump on his social media platform, the place the livestream was delayed over 40 minutes attributable to technical difficulties. After lengthy, rambling discussions about immigration, inflation, and overseas coverage, Musk and Trump lastly got here to the topic of vitality and local weather change — the place Musk surprisingly got here to protection of the fossil gas trade.

“I don’t suppose we must always vilify the oil and fuel trade and the folks that have labored very arduous in these industries to offer the required vitality to help the economic system,” Musk mentioned.

The Tesla CEO, who described his views as “fairly reasonable” on vitality regardless of proudly owning an EV and residential vitality firm, claimed the economic system “would collapse” if oil and fuel corporations had been compelled to shutdown. Musk additionally mentioned that the planet can transition to a sustainable vitality economic system in “50 or 100 years” — regardless of the scientific neighborhood warning that humanity is rapidly reaching a tipping level on the local weather. (Trump later modified it to “500 to 1000 years,” which Musk didn’t appropriate.)

“So it’s not like the home is on fireplace instantly,” Musk mentioned. “However I feel it’s one thing we have to transfer in the direction of… It’s most likely higher to maneuver there sooner than slower. However like with out vilifying the oil and fuel trade and with out inflicting hardship within the brief time period.”

However he rapidly contradicted himself. Musk acknowledged that the air will turn out to be tougher to breath with the continued use of fossil fuels, inflicting individuals “complications and nausea.” However that was no cause to rapidly transition away from the usage of planet-heating fuels. In accordance with Musk, we will casually stroll right into a extra sustainable future.

“We nonetheless have fairly a little bit of time,” he mentioned. “We don’t have to rush.”

Trump, who typically gave the impression of he was slurring his phrases, quipped that rising sea ranges means individuals would have extra “oceanfront property.” That remark was rapidly blasted out by Vice President Kamala Harris’ marketing campaign.

Trump then briefly touched on considered one of his favourite subjects, electrical automobiles, claiming that fossil fuel-powered vitality era is what powers Tesla’s automobiles. “[We] can’t get away from it at this second,” he mentioned.

However the EV dialogue didn’t go a lot additional than that, regardless of Trump’s vows to finish subsidies for plug-in vehicles that might significantly impression 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 didn’t observe by means of.)

“Folks discuss world warming, or they discuss local weather change, however they by no means discuss nuclear warming,” Trump mentioned. “A right away downside.”