Elon Musk – the man to whom Tesla and Tesla Solar have largely dedicated their existence to competition with gas-consuming cars, oil and coal and who briefly reached a market capitalization of $ 1 trillion and delivered nearly 1 million EVs last year – is now publicly in favor. of increasing oil and gas production.
I hate to say it, but we need to increase oil and gas production immediately.
Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures.
Obviously, this would have a negative impact on Tesla, but sustainable energy solutions simply cannot react immediately to offset Russia’s oil and gas exports.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 5, 2022
“Obviously, this would have a negative impact on Tesla, but sustainable energy solutions simply cannot react immediately to offset Russia’s oil and gas exports,” he added. follow-up tweet nine minutes later. He is probably referring to the world’s remarkable dependence on Russian pipelines – a dependence that has not stopped many governments from sanctioning Russia since its invasion of Ukraine, but has raised fears of rising energy prices, especially in Europe.
It’s always hard to tell if Musk is just riffing, trolling, or actually making plans when he posts things on Twitter, but there’s no denying that he’s incredibly influential, and many of his 76 million followers take him seriously, even when jokes.
It’s not that oil and gas aren’t important to Musk’s plans either. Last year, we reported that his SpaceX wanted to drill natural gas on land near the Starship facility in Texas. Electricity doesn’t take Musk’s missiles off the ground.
“I’m not in favor of demonizing the oil and gas industry,” Musk told Joe Rogan in a podcast last year. “We will have to burn fossil fuels for a long time. The only question is how fast are we moving towards a sustainable energy future?