Here’s what Trump consigliere Elon Musk says about climate change

They’re an odd couple, the world’s richest man and the once and future U.S. president. Elon Musk has called climate change an enormous threat. Donald Trump scoffs, often, that it’s a hoax. “We don’t have a global warming problem,” the then-candidate said Nov. 3.

As CEO of Tesla Motors since 2008, Musk has built a trillion-dollar, “sexy” electric car brand. The founder of rocket maker SpaceX has gushed about bringing people, pizza joints and nightclubs to Mars, maybe as a backup plan to Earth. He also launched the XPrize with $100 million, igniting a race for carbon-capture technologies.

“Musk might be the only person Trump listens to on climate,” a Politico headline ran in August.

However, even if that’s why Trump is less dismissive of electric vehicles lately, he appears most attracted to Musk’s glib gutting of organizations. He named the billionaire Nov. 12 the co-leader of the nation’s would-be Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk famously stripped down Twitter into X after he bought it in 2022, axing 80 percent of the workers. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, a climate change denier and former Trump rival, is Musk’s partner. DOGE is meant to attack perceived excess federal regulations and wasteful spending.

Musk used his bully pulpit on Nov. 19 to call out several government climate advisors by name on X, subjecting them to harassment. His post targeting women working in the Department of Energy Loan Programs Office, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Health and Human Services got 27 million views. Another post mocked as a “fake” job the the director of climate diversification at the US International Development Finance Corporation. It attracted 33 million views.

Musk has lashed out at federal agencies for seeking to regulate his business activities. In October, Musk lampooned NOAA Fisheries for requesting data about how SpaceX landings would affect sharks in the Pacific Ocean. In line with the Project 2025 plan for Trumps’ second administration, programs on Musk’s $2 trillion chopping block could include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) weather forecasting and climate modeling. 

Musk appears to be receiving a return on his $200 million investment in Trump. How would Musk benefit from turbocharging the longtime right-wing dream to shrink government and “drown it in the bathtub“? The former Democrat has griped that red tape stymies his businesses. Yet Musk earned $1.7 billion in selling regulatory clean air credits to peer companies in 2023 alone.

His conflicts of interest run deep. Tesla has at least $352,000 in government contracts, according to the New York Times. Multiply that by millions, and SpaceX gets at least $15.4 billion. Musk’s companies had 100 contracts among 17 federal agencies last year.

Wouldn’t Trump’s promise to roll back President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) and other regulations hurt Musk? It’s complicated. If Trump got rid of the $7,500 federal tax credit consumers get for buying electric cars, it counterintuitively might help Musk. “Take away the subsidies, it will only help Tesla,” he posted on X in July.

As a billionaire, Musk’s lifestyle clashes with his climate talk. His private jets emit more CO2 in one day than a jury of his peers would in a lifetime, according to an October Oxfam report, “Carbon Inequality Kills”.

Without pretending to know how Musk may influence the next Trump administration’s threatened dismantling of climate policy, or not, clues come directly from the Tesla CEO’s mouth:

On the climate impact of beef

“It’s not gonna make any difference to global warming or the CO2 concentration atmosphere, really, if people eat pure steaks, it doesn’t matter.” — Nov. 4, on the Joe Rogan Experience

On oil and gas

“If we were to stop using oil and gas right now, we would all be starving and the economy would collapse … We still have quite a bit of time … we don’t need to rush and we don’t need to like, you know, stop farmers from farming or, you know, prevent people from having steaks or basic stuff like that.” — August, in a conversation with Trump on X

On humanity saving the sustainable energy problem

“We shouldn’t be complacent about changing the chemical constituency of our atmosphere & oceans, but climate change definitely will not end the world as we know it! If people keep pushing hard, humanity will solve the sustainable energy problem in time.” — September 2023, on X

On the need to use oil and gas in the short term

“Realistically I think we need to use oil and gas in the short term, because otherwise civilization will crumble … One of the biggest challenges the world has ever faced is the transition to sustainable energy and to a sustainable economy. That will take some decades to complete.” — August 2022, at an energy conference in Norway

On adding a carbon tax

“My top recommendation, honestly, would be just add a carbon tax.” — emissions, February 2021, on the Joe Rogan podcast

On solving the pressing problems on Earth

“It’s important to preserve the light of consciousness by making life multi-planetary. But we must also solve the pressing environmental problems on Earth, like climate change.” — February 2020, in the “Third Row Tesla” podcast

On the next potential risk for humanity

“The acceleration of sustainable energy is absolutely fundamental, because this is the next potential risk for humanity. So obviously, that is, by far and away, the most important thing.” — February 2019, in a quarterly Tesla conference call

On hating to be a Cassandra

“Climate change is the biggest threat that humanity faces this century, except for AI. … I hate to be Cassandra here, but it’s all fun and games until somebody loses a f—ing eye. This view [of climate change] is shared by almost everyone who’s not crazy in the scientific community … The fundamental intention of Tesla, at least my motivation was to accelerate the advent of sustainable energy. That’s why I open-sourced the patents.” — 2018, to Rolling Stone magazine

On Trump leaving the Paris Agreement

“Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.” — On Trump leaving the Paris Agreement, June 2017

On fighting the propaganda of the fossil fuel industry

“It is quite worrying, the future of the world. We need to appeal to the people and educate them to sort of revolt against this and to fight the propaganda of the fossil fuel industry which is unrelenting and enormous.” —May 2016, at the World Energy Innovation at Tesla’s Fremont, California

On a popular uprising

“They have more money and more influence than any other sector. So I think the more that there can be a sort of popular uprising against that the better.” — on Big Oil, in the 2016 National Geographic documentary “Before the Flood”

On consequences of waiting and delaying

“If we wait and delay the change (away from fossil fuels), the best case is simply delaying the inevitable transition from sustainable energy.” — 2015 speech at the Paris-Sorbonne University