Elon Musk is in a vulnerable position, as he told Tucker Carlson in a pre-election interview, “If Trump loses, I’m fucked”.
He might be fucked anyway, if in fact he did anything illegal, having a top security clearance while having conversations with Vladimir Putin.
If that’s the case, a President Trump would have considerable leverage over him, with a credible threat of prosecution and jail.
So, how much influence do you think he will have in a new administration?
Elon Musk has described himself as “pro-environment” and “super pro climate.” But he also threw himself wholeheartedly into electing as president someone who has dismissed global warming as a hoax.
Now, as President-elect Donald J. Trump prepares to enter the White House, one big question is how much sway — if any — Mr. Musk’s views on climate change and clean energy might have in the new administration.
During the campaign, Mr. Trump noticeably softened his rhetoricon electric vehicles as he grew more friendly with Mr. Musk, the billionaire chief executive of Tesla. After months of bashing plug-in cars and promising to halt their sales, Mr. Trump backtracked slightly this summer.
“I’m constantly talking about electric vehicles, but I don’t mean I’m against them. I’m totally for them,” he told a crowd in Michigan. “I’ve driven them and they are incredible, but they’re not for everybody.”
At the time, Mr. Musk claimed credit for Mr. Trump’s apparent shift, telling Tesla shareholders at a June meeting, “I can be persuasive.” Referring to Mr. Trump, he said, “A lot of his friends now have Teslas, and they all love it. And he’s a huge fan of the Cybertruck. So I think those may be contributing factors.”
Now Mr. Musk, who spent election night at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and posed for a group photograph with the president-elect’s family, is expected to have a direct line to the White House in the coming months. Mr. Musk’s companies, including Tesla and SpaceX, already make billions from government contracts and federal policies, and he is expected to seek additional advantages for his businesses.
But whether his persuasion might extend to other realms, such as climate issues, remains to be seen.
“It’s a real question,” said Paul Bledsoe, a lecturer at American University Center for Environmental Policy. “Does Musk only advocate for the interests of Tesla and SpaceX? Is he just a self-interested lobbyist? Or does he try to influence Trump to recognize that as an economic matter, clean energy is a huge opportunity for the United States to outcompete China?”
Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump’s transition team did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Trump’s views on global warming and energy policy are no mystery. He has doubted whether the Earth is getting hotter. (Scientists are unequivocal that it is.) He has falsely describedclimate change as “where the ocean is going to rise one-eighth of an inch over the next 400 years.” (Sea levels have already risen an average of roughly eight inches over the past century and are expected to rise several feet or more by 2100 as glaciers and ice sheets continue to melt.)
The president-elect has promised to withdraw, yet again, from the 2015 Paris climate agreement, under which nearly 200 nations pledged to curb the greenhouse gas emissions that are heating the planet. He has attacked solar panels and wind turbines. And he told a crowd of supporters on Wednesday that the United States would amp up oil production even beyond current record levels. “We have more liquid gold than any country in the world,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Musk, by contrast, has consistently said he thinks climate change is a problem — although he has sometimes wavered on how urgent that problem is. He has long been a major proponent of shifting to low-emissions technology like solar power, batteries and electric vehicles.
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Possibly a more likely influence would be red state lawmakers who have been benefitting from the Biden administration’s clean energy initiative.
States in the south-east of the US and Republican congressional districts are benefitting the most from the IRA, which has its second anniversary this month.
Since the IRA was signed into law on 16 August 2022, companies have announced 334 new clean energy and EV projects across the country, according to E2’s report entitled Clean Economy Works: IRA Two-Year Analysis.
The report noted that “despite the fact that no Republican voted for the legislation”, nearly 60% of the announced projects are based in Republican congressional districts.
Of all new projects, those in Republican districts represent 85% of the investments and 68% of jobs. Of the top 20 congressional districts for clean energy investments, 19 are held by Republicans.
The projects are expected to create nearly 110,000 new jobs and bring a minimum of $126bn of direct private investment to 40 states. Currently, more than 110 major clean energy and EV factories are in development, with 55 of them based in South Carolina and Georgia.
Lucas Olinyk, president of Harvest Solar, a clean energy company based in Jackson, Michigan, said: “Michigan has arguably benefitted from the IRA more than any other state, and that has certainly been our experience here in Jackson County. It feels like clean energy is at a tipping point – and the IRA is an accelerant.
Will Musk move Trump on his position about climate change? I’m going to go out on a limb and say no. Musk will probably get some favorable regulatory conditions for Tesla and SpaceX, though. Not a bad return on his $130 million investment.
Musk is pro-climate, anti-environmentalist:
https://www.eenews.net/articles/elon-musk-plans-a-bonfire-of-nonsense-regulations/
We’re moving back to a time where corporations will get a green light to push their externalities onto the poor and the environment.
Really need an “unlike” button that conveys “I agree with what you wrote and how you presented it, but OMG this bites.”
I hear ya. I’d call it a sadly true button.
Moving back? We never left that time.
For a while there we were having some progress. Then corporations learned which politicians are most cheaply bought and the “low information” voters can be fed all sorts of ridiculous spin.
Yeah, no.
Yeah, no.
Were Musk actually interested in the environment, he would have focused Tesla EVs on mid-priced sedans that could serve the population that would most benefit from it, the millions of people who commute short to medium distances daily. The handful of people that can spend $80,000 – $100,000 on a giant pickup truck that is too big to fit in most parking deck spaces is a solution to know environmental problem, particularly in light of the enormous amount of direct and indirect energy and other resources that go into its batteries and construction. He would have made safety and reliability the same cornerstones as they were for his first models.
He wouldn’t be claiming that Robotaxis will be cheaper per mile than existing public transportation by (a) projecting far better performance than he’s shown to date (meeting deadlines, producing to spec) and (b) he doesn’t do the relevant calculation of per *person* mile. I’ll grant you that I don’t enjoy walking to the bus stop and then waiting for it show up, but more expensive per person mile than an (allegedly) autopiloted Uber replacement? No way is that cheaper than a bus or train per person. It’s like the people who complain that offsetting your jet travel is meaningless because it only covers your travel. True… so the idea is, everyone pays their share. But I digress.
– He wouldn’t have designed a Robovan that will be flummoxed by the first pothole it encounters, or steep hill.
– He wouldn’t be pushing for underground tunnels that could not, in even the wildest calculations, do anything but provide super-expensive commuter lanes (HDV as opposed to HOV, I suppose) or ridiculously slow and low throughput lanes.
– He wouldn’t be pushing to build a colony on Mars while at the same time doing almost nothing to make such a colony practical (unless you honestly think he plans to lift a Boring tunnel digger up to space to dig tunnels on Mars with, you know, no spare parts or anything). Kudos to him for his (government-funded) overhaul of spaceflight, but there is no reason beyond scientific discovery to have a colony on Mars and no way that we understand microbiomes, societal impacts of living underground, health impacts of low gravity over decades (let alone pregnancy, delivery and childhood), or even managing limited water and air resources on a self-sustaining basis. It’s just 100% bonkers and nothing to do with anything but hubris and/or a 10-year-old’s fascination with space (I felt it, too, when I was 10 and watched the first lunar landing).
– He wouldn’t be promoting increasing the birthrate dramatically (possibly would still be leading by example).
I thought Musk was eccentric but focused like a laser on solving some major problems civilization is facing. Turns out he’s another grifter with a knack for dragging some great design out of overworked engineers and then turning it all into self-aggrandizing crap unrelated to his original stated vision.
I hope I’m overstating the situation. I don’t think I am.
(PS Sorry about the two-word post, please delete.)
Musk has already spent most of the government money he was advanced to get to the Moon, without the Super Heavy even getting into orbit. It’s flights so far have been empty, too – lifting a useful payload is a much harder task. The plan to take it to the Moon would involve at least a dozen more launches taking fuel up to orbit, but no test of refuelling in space with cryogenic fuel, or restarting these engines in orbit after long periods in cold/hot vacuum, has ever been tried. Now he’s talking about a redesign of Starship, before it’s achieved any of the planned milestones. By this many launches, NASA’s Saturn 5 had already taken a complete lunar mission ensemble into orbit, tested its deployment and reattachment, and flown a manned mission round the Moon and back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxG0WAwwrGk&ab_channel=Thunderf00t
As for saving the planet, the three ton Cybertruck, claimed by Musk to be designed to ‘win’ in collisions with lesser vehicles, costing way more than the average paycheck can afford, and with sharp angles all over it apparently designed to maim pedestrians and cyclists, seems a strange way to start.
So, this is what is known so far:
With Ready Orders and an Energy Czar, Trump Plots Pivot to Fossil Fuels
President-elect Donald J. Trump’s transition team for climate and the environment is considering relocating the E.P.A. out of Washington and other drastic changes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/08/climate/trump-transition-epa-interior-energy.html
“People working on the transition have already prepared a slate of executive orders and presidential proclamations on climate and energy. They include withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate agreement, eliminating every office in every agency working to end the pollution that disproportionately affects poor communities and shrinking the size of national monuments in the West to allow more drilling and mining on public lands.
President Biden has made environmental justice a top priority and has sought to ensure that underserved communities benefit from at least 40 percent of clean energy development. That initiative will be scrapped, people familiar with the plan said. The move will be part of a greater effort to dismantle what Mr. Trump’s allies view as the “woke” agenda and any programs that do not help improve the economy.”
Just excusing producers from having to account for fugitive methane emissions, and probably kneecapping government work to cap abandoned wells, should be enough to negate the climate benefits of US switch from coal to gas. (Still an improvement for people downwind trying to breathe.) With fugitive emissions, boil off, plus the losses of freezing down to 100C below zero, liquefied natural gas exports are much worse than piped domestic use.