Trump, Elon and climate change

Elon Musk's pro-climate stance clashes with his SpaceX mission to escape Earth.

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The Tesla billionaire has described himself as "pro-environment" and "super pro-climate". Some years ago, he also suspended the purchase of Tesla vehicles using Bitcoin citing carbon emissions resulting from the massive mining required to process Bitcoin transactions. But he also threw himself behind Trump in the election cycle. Many argue, and perhaps rightfully so, that Elon played a significant role in getting Trump elected. Trump is someone who has dismissed climate change as a hoax. Well, how is that going to work with a team where one player calls himself as "super pro-climate" and the other dismisses it as a hoax?

Lately, it appeared that Trump has veered from being anti-electric vehicles to being a supporter of them. Elon wanted to take credit for that change in heart. He said, "I can be persuasive." Trump being Trump, we know he never does anything, including changing a stance, without a quid pro quo. Does that mean Elon would have to tone down his climate rhetoric? Perhaps he already has started making noise, which gives off vibes of abandoning the green mission. He has been supporting right wing politicians around the world.

But there is something interesting about two companies of Elon which, to my knowledge, nobody has paid the right attention to. Those two companies are Tesla and SpaceX. I am sure you already know about these companies. But they both seem to be working against each other's missions. Will get to that later.

A friend of mine saw a Tesla vehicle in a Houston masjid parking lot and commented that people who drive Teslas are the ones who genuinely care about the environment. I remember countering that with a rebuttal that the vehicles were getting charged with electricity that was generated using fossil fuel and so those people were either not worried about the environment or perhaps they didn't know. But today I wonder if the Tesla founder actually had the environment on his mind when he was trying to reinvent how automobiles should be powered?

And that is where the two companies mentioned above collide with one another. Tesla urges driving electric cars so that the planet could be saved from the effects of carbon emissions. Sounds like those anti-virus software whose goal really never was to safeguard the computer but to sell the software. SpaceX says humanity should go to Mars because earth will eventually be uninhabitable due to the effects of climate change. The mindset is much like what the character Dr Brand says in Interstellar, "We are not meant to save the world, we are meant to leave it." If earth is meant to be a planet that humanity must exit from then what is all this noise about electric vehicles and clean energy? If we, however, are to save the planet by using clean energy, lowering and eventually ending carbon emissions, then why would we need to find another celestial body for humanity? Yes, there are those who say we should venture into space regardless and I am a proponent of that ambition too. But that is not what SpaceX argues in justifying its demand for funds while embarking on space missions. Their noise is not much different from the one made by Presidents Bush and Obama when they justified pre-emptive invasions of foreign lands. That we must go there otherwise, we will be destroyed here.

Does that explain why Elon has started to rub shoulders with Trump because an earth becoming more and more uninhabitable due to the effects of human caused climate change, there will be more need for his SpaceX so humanity could eventually establish a home on Mars. Either we work toward saving the planet in which scenario going to Mars becomes a slow and non-urgent mission or we cook our planet and going to Mars becomes urgent. It doesn't require an MBA to understand which scenario helps Elon's SpaceX more.