Tesla Inc. TSLA CEO Elon Musk on Monday promoted building better products to convince people to switch to more eco-friendly mobility options such as electric vehicles instead of guilting them over concerns of climate change.
What Happened: “Exactly! Convince people to switch by making better products,” Musk wrote in response to Tesla enthusiast Omar Qazi, who goes by the username Whole Mars Catalog.
“…we'll convince people to switch by making a Tesla the best car they've ever owned. Not by eco-guilt,” Qazi wrote in his post.
The explanation from the billionaire entrepreneur comes on the heels of his Spaces interview with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Musk said during the interview that his views on climate change are “moderate” and that he doesn’t believe in vilifying or overregulating oil and gas as people would starve in their absence.
Musk later explained that he indeed believes global warming is real. However, progress in sustainable energy production and consumption can solve global warming in time, Musk said, hinting there is no rush and dismissing the idea that there is an immediate need to address climate change.
“And we will run out of oil & gas down the road, so why run this CO2 experiment to extreme levels when need to solve sustainable energy anyway?” Musk wrote.
Trump, meanwhile, dismissed the risks of climate change in absolute and alleged that nuclear warming poses a more immediate and greater risk.
“The biggest threat is not global warming, where the ocean is going to rise one-eighth of an inch over the next 400 years,” Trump told Musk. “You will have more oceanfront property, right?”
Why It Matters: This is not the first time that Musk has stated similar opinions on climate change despite heading an EV company. In June, Musk said that climate change risk is “overstated in the near term” but “probably accurate in the long term.”
Musk's Tesla, however, is the world's largest battery electric vehicle seller with 443,956 EVs sold in the second quarter alone.
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