WIRED has been writing about Elon Musk—he of the electric cars, space rockets, tunnel-boring machines, implantable brain interfaces, Mars mission, and internet shitposting—for a long time. He’s always been unpredictable. And yet the most shocking part of his two-hour interview with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, broadcast live on X earlier this week, may just have been what Musk didn’t say.
It happened around the 50-minute mark, during a very Trumpian discussion of gas and electricity prices. They were up nationally, Trump said, but “when that comes down and [sic] we’re going to drill, baby, drill.”
The siren song of the oil and gas industry! Literally: Drill, baby, drill! And Musk, he of the—I’m going to say it again—electric cars and “saving the world” schtick, didn’t pipe up until a full two minutes later, when he suggested that Trump set up a “government efficiency commission” to curb government spending. Later, he and Trump did have a brief exchange on 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 vilify the oil and gas industry, because they’re keeping civilization going right now,” he said.
This felt like a departure. Musk has spent a large chunk of his career casting himself as an environmental champion, sometimes going so far as to paint himself as the one man standing between the world and disaster. He has told the story of Tesla, in particular, as a hero’s journey to save the world through a transition 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 biggest threat that humanity faces this century, except for AI,” he said. “I keep telling people this. I hate to be Cassandra here, but it’s all fun and games until somebody loses a fucking eye. This view [of climate change] is shared by almost everyone who’s not crazy in the scientific community.” Musk has also regularly accused critics of carrying water for “fossil fuel companies.”
Oh, and remember that time (June 2017) that Musk quit three of Trump’s presidential councils after the US pulled out of 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 and wishy-washy approach to climate also reflects not only his very vocal embrace of far-right politics but also a new story he’s telling about Tesla. For the past few years, and especially as the chatter around artificial intelligence has hit a fever pitch, Musk has positioned his electric-auto maker as a path-breaker in robotic intelligence, too. In 2019, Musk announced that Tesla would have 1 million robotaxis on the road by the end of the year. (It didn’t). More recently, Tesla reportedly shifted resources from building a more affordable electric car, the mythical Model 2, to releasing a purpose-built robotaxi, even though the company has yet to reveal any true self-driving technology. (An unveiling event is scheduled for October.) Musk has said repeatedly that Tesla is an AI and robotics company and should be valued by investors as such. If Musk is backing off his endorsement of climate change science, it’s reasonable to ask if that relates to his marketing pivot for the most valuable car company in the world.
That said, Musk and Trump did have a quasi-substantive conversation about climate change. In it, Musk told Trump that “we do, over time, want to move to a sustainable energy economy, because eventually you run out of oil and gas.” (On Monday, Trump agreed with Musk—and then spent a chunk of a Thursday press conference railing against electric trucks.) Musk emphasized that high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leads to “headaches and nausea.”
That’s not wrong, exactly. Researchers have found that indoor exposure to high concentrations of carbon dioxide, around the 1,000-parts-per-million mark (or higher), can make people ill. But Musk omitted the most adverse effects of high concentrations of carbon dioxide: that gas traps the sun’s heat nearer to the Earth’s surface, intensifying rain storms, heat waves, even disease outbreaks. This stuff is happening now. Which means that Musk’s assessment Monday of the US approach to climate change—”we still have quite a bit of time”—misses the mark.
Time Travel
Much has been made of Musk’s recent shift rightward. But even when he and his electric-car company were the bogeymen of right-wing media, Musk’s politics were never straightforward. He has, for years, caught the ire of pro-labor progressives for his fight against unionization at Tesla’s California plant. (Just this week, the United Auto Workers filed federal labor charges against Musk and Trump for anti-union comments made during the interview.) The man has never pretended to be pro-worker.
In a 2018 WIRED cover story, writer Charles Duhigg uncovered the distinctly unpleasant working conditions during Tesla’s push to produce its “most affordable” vehicle yet, the Model 3 sedan. The whole thing is worth a read, but an opening anecdote showed just how passionate, capricious, and downright rude to employees Musk can be. How you feel about that probably comes down to how you feel about Musk, and his various missions, in general.
At about 10 o’clock on Saturday evening, an angry Musk was examining one of the production line’s mechanized modules, trying to figure out what was wrong, when the young, excited engineer was brought over to assist him.
“Hey, buddy, this doesn’t work!” Musk shouted at the engineer, according to someone who heard the conversation. “Did you do this?”
The engineer was taken aback. He had never met Musk before. Musk didn’t even know the engineer’s name. The young man wasn’t certain what, exactly, Musk was asking him, or why he sounded so angry.
“You mean, program the robot?” the engineer said. “Or design that tool?”
“Did you fucking do this?” Musk asked him.
“I’m not sure what you’re referring to?” the engineer replied apologetically.
“You’re a fucking idiot!” Musk shouted back. “Get the fuck out and don’t come back!”
The young engineer climbed over a low safety barrier and walked away. He was bewildered by what had just happened. The entire conversation had lasted less than a minute. A few moments later, his manager came over to say that he had been fired on Musk’s orders, according to two people with knowledge of the situation. The engineer was shocked. He’d been working so hard. He was set to get a review from his manager the next week, and had been hearing only positive things. Instead, two days later, he signed his separation papers.
End Times Chronicle
The oceans are weirdly warm right now. Climate change probably has a lot to do with it, but so might … general weirdness?
Last but Not Least
Your visual guide to the influencers shaping the 2024 election. (Guess who the biggest political influencer is?!)
But not all influencers successfully influence. Why NBC’s Olympics bet didn’t quite work out.
If you value your neck, please update your bicycle’s gear-shifter software.
If you value your mental health, don’t get too attached to OpenAI’s voice mode. (The company says it’s a risk.)
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