Elon Musk is concerned about climate change, and created Telsa to lead the migration to electric cars to help combat climate change. That seems like a positive impact to life on earth.
But then more recently, he's said that farming doesn't contribute. https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1672793968587702272
He flies on his private jet all over the world, that alone contributing 100s of times more than the average household. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/20/elon-mus...
His social media platform is one of the largest spreaders of climate change misinformation.
He recently campaigned for and spent hundreds of millions to elect a guy who believes climate change is a hoax, which will likely delay any progress we could make by years. https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-260-million-spendi...
His unelected, unofficial government department is targeting huge cuts to the EPA. https://www.eenews.net/articles/epa-in-elon-musks-crosshairs...
So maybe in the past he was concerned about climate change, but that appears to no longer be the case, or its further down on his list, below accumulating billions in wealth and amassing political power.
Elon Musk did not found Tesla, and most definitely did not did it for environmental reasons.
"Tesla was incorporated in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning as Tesla Motors." [1]
"If, I don’t know, 50 to 100 years from now, we’re mostly sustainable. I think that’ll probably be okay. So it’s not like the house is on fire immediately. [...] "The risk is not as high as a lot of people say it is with respect to global warming." [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.
[2] https://turboscribe.ai/transcript/share/4422534834081521519/...
>and most definitely did not did it for environmental reasons.
From that same link, he says one of the goals of Tesla is to make environmentalism cool:
> And so you get the solar power, mind that with batteries. So because obviously the sun doesn't shine at night and then you use that to charge the electric cars and you have a long-term sustainable solution.
> And, you know, that's what Tesla is trying to move things towards. And I think we've made a lot of progress in that regard. But when you look at our cars, like we don't believe that environmentalism, that caring about the environment should mean that you have to suffer.
> So we make sure that our cars are beautiful, that they drive well, that they're fast, they're, you know, sexy. I mean, they're cool.
Here he says the purpose for him working on electric cars is to transition people to sustainable transport: https://youtu.be/SNIaHc0Uggs?si=ELivf9xj2J3PS8Wi&t=304