Cleantech’s Musk Conundrum

“It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured. We’re gonna have safe cities, finally safe cities. Secure borders, sensible spending. Basic stuff. And we’re gonna take DOGE to Mars.” - Elon Musk

Tesla founder and CEO gave an animated speech at US President Donald Trump’s inauguration rally earlier this week. While the policy sections of his speech spouted predictable Republican talking points, other parts were hyperbolic. He was excited, almost ecstatic. And he twice gave what looked an awful lot like a Nazi salute (and a belligerent one, at that).

Musk’s intentions have been disputed in the days following, although he has not explicitly denied that it was a Nazi salute, or even apologized for the confusion. Instead he has chosen to forfeit any culpability and placed the blame squarely on the mainstream media, citing left-wing bias as the reason for this narrative, saying that they need to come up with “better dirty tricks.” He even went so far as to repost out-of-context photos of Democrat politicians with their arms also raised.

There’s a reason why Internet trolls never post the actual videos of these instances.

In Germany, where the salute is a criminal offense punishable by jail time, the gesture has been widely criticized. However, it was welcomed by far-right and white nationalist groups – suggesting that the likely intended audience received the message.

Any claim that Musk is naively unaware of the far-reaching consequences of his actions, from atop one of the world’s largest platforms is, quite frankly, absurd.

This farce is simply the latest in a series of actual political interventions that raise serious questions about Musk’s temperament, judgment, and his perceived role in global affairs.

In recent times, Musk has notably:

• Spent $277 million to back Trump and other Republican candidates in the 2024 US federal election – making him simultaneously the largest Trump donor and the largest US government contractor, who now has a direct line to the Presidency
• Endorsed and personally platformed Germany’s far-right party, the AfD, hosting leader Alice Weidel for an interview on X (Weidel also made headlines earlier this week for her opposition to the energy transition, saying that the AfD will, "Tear down these windmills of shame")
• Dredged up despicable and criminally-adjudicated crimes of sexual abuse in the UK in an attempt to undermine Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in favour of support for the British anti-immigration Reform UK party

Combined with his control and manipulation of X in pursuit of what has become a radical political agenda focused on sowing division and discontent, Musk’s behavior is giving pause to many clean energy industry participants. 

Musk and his company Tesla have both played an outsized role in the development and adoption of highly-impactful cleantech products – the Tesla models S, Y, and 3 and the Tesla Powerwall and Megapack. 

In solar, Musk’s cousins Peter and Lyndon Rive founded pioneering solar lease provider SolarCity – before it was purchased and became Tesla Energy. 

But the PV industry hasn’t always been kind to Musk and Tesla. The Tesla solar shingle, the Solar Roof, has been a troubled product – with lengthy delays and persistently high costs; solar leasing itself has lost much of its market resonance after a period of rapid growth; and attempts to commercialise the Silevo HJT technology were an abject failure. However, in terms of EV adoption and stationary battery storage, Tesla has been extremely influential. 

Tesla solar shingles

Thinking back to the time before Tesla, EVs were thought of by many to be something akin to a fridge on wheels – boxy, impractical, and definitely not sexy. With torque and style, Tesla changed that. For stationary storage, Tesla introduced a product that was aggressive on price and attractive to consumers. And a combination of chutzpah and hustle saw the first 100 MW utility-scale battery shipped and installed in South Australia (within 100 days!) – proving how quick-to-deploy and effective big batteries could be. For a time the system was referred to quite simply as the "Tesla Big Battery" – although it is now known as the Hornsdale Power Reserve. 

But how is the Tesla brand faring in light of Musk’s political interventions? How comfortable are clean energy participants behind the wheel of a Tesla? And is the shine coming off the company’s Powerwall and Megapack?

Having worked as a journalist in clean energy for almost 15 years, I’ve seen the limits to Musk’s so-called “pursuit of radical free speech” – his stated motivation for originally buying Twitter. His companies are downright hermetic when it comes to public communications. For a “free speech absolutist” being at the helm, Tesla is a notoriously tight lipped company. Public utterances are targeted to make maximum impact (delivered by Musk himself, naturally) and often with crucial details lacking. And there are few people more afraid to speak to a journalist than a Tesla employee.

Personally, I’m conflicted by the Tesla conundrum. I proudly put Musk on the cover of my first edition of pv magazine Global as Editor in Chief. I celebrated the Tesla Big Battery in South Australia and how it turned conventional thinking about grids on its head. I covered the launch of the Powerwall 2 extensively. 

pv magazine Global, July 2014

I think it’s important for renewable energy to have powerful advocates who are not afraid to disrupt the status quo. But does Musk still fit this bill?

Only hours after taking the Presidential oath, Trump signed an executive order compelling US government agencies to “immediately pause the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.” His action singles out “EV mandates,” ordering them to be halted along with the funding of charging infrastructure electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, including the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program and the Charging and Fuelling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant program. 

While policies seeking to slow EV adoption may appear to be against Tesla’s interests, industry analysts have pointed to ways in which it might assist Musk’s company – which enjoys a first-mover advantage. 

CNN reported that Garrett Nelson, an analyst for CFRA Research, said that winding up the Investment Tax Credit on EVs:

“Will widen Tesla’s competitive moat by making competing EV models even more uneconomic, as we believe Tesla is the only profitable manufacturer of EVs.”

Tesla is also ahead in terms of rolling out its proprietary Supercharger network. 

These impacts on the EV market have an air of oligarchical influence about them. They look like policies that a quarter of a billion in electoral donations will buy. Musk no longer appears to be an entrepreneur pursuing the goal of emissions reductions and action on climate change, but rather one pursuing chaos and disruption, the accumulation of enormous wealth, and unchecked power.

All of these factors raise an important question: is the benefit of Tesla’s significant influence on the energy transition worth the risk posed by Musk’s divisive and potentially harmful behavior?

This article has been originally published on Climate Copy's LinkedIn Page. illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Sustainability & Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.