Elon Musk tells Donald Trump that he shouldn’t ‘smear the oil and gas industry’

Elon Musk, who owns an electric car company and is known for saying he wants to transition humanity to a “sustainable energy civilization,” told former President Donald Trump during an interview on The X Show that “he shouldn’t blame the oil and gas industry.”

Musk interviewed Trump on his social media platform, but the livestream was delayed by more than 40 minutes due to technical issues. After lengthy discussions about immigration, inflation and foreign policy, Musk and Trump finally got on the topic of energy and climate change, where, in a surprising move, Musk defended the fossil fuel industry.

“I don’t think we should blame the oil and gas industry and the people who have worked so hard in these industries to provide the energy we need to power our economy,” Musk said.

The Tesla CEO said he has a “fairly moderate” view on energy despite owning an EV and home energy company, arguing that the economy would “collapse” if oil and gas companies were forced to shut down. He also said the planet could transition to a sustainable energy economy in “50 or 100 years,” despite the scientific community warning that humanity is rapidly reaching a climate tipping point. (Trump later changed this to “500 to 1,000 years,” but Musk did not correct him.)

“So it’s not going to set the house on fire anytime soon,” Musk said, “but I think this is the direction we need to go. It’s better to go faster than slow, but without blaming the oil and gas industry or causing short-term hardship.”

But he quickly made a contradictory statement. Musk acknowledged that continuing to burn fossil fuels makes the air harder to breathe and gives people “headaches and nausea.” But that’s no reason to immediately transition away from using fuels that heat up the planet. We can blithely walk to a more sustainable future, Musk said.

“There’s still plenty of time,” he said. “There’s no need to rush.”

The slurring Trump joked that rising sea levels would mean people had more “land by the water” – a comment quickly rebuked by Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign.

Trump then briefly touched on one of his favorite topics – electric cars – and claimed that Tesla cars run on electricity generated by fossil fuels.[We] “There’s no getting away from it at this point,” he said.

But the EV discussion didn’t go much further, even as Trump vowed to end subsidies for plug-in cars that could seriously hurt Tesla’s sales. Trump urged Musk to put solar panels on the roof of the car. (Tesla filed a patent for a solar-panel tonneau cover for the Cybertruck, but it never came to fruition.)

“People talk about global warming and climate change, but they never talk about nuclear warming,” Trump said. “It’s an urgent issue.”