A 2006 blog in which Tesla chief Elon Musk outlined his views on climate change and his larger vision for the electric vehicle-maker, has disappeared from the company’s page, according to a report by Forbes.
“Our long term plan is to build a wide range of models, including affordably priced family cars,” Elon Musk wrote in the post. “This is because the overarching purpose of Tesla Motors (and the reason I am funding the company) is to help expedite the move from a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy towards a solar electric economy,” he said.
The blog was posted days after Tesla’s first ever public event, in which the company unveiled its first electric car, the Roadster, Forbes noted. The manifesto served as the company’s statement of purpose, made it a darling of the environmental community and helped Tesla raised funds in 2010 IPO, it added.
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But the post is no longer available on Tesla’s blog, nor are any other posts before 2019.
The purge comes at a time when Musk, and in-effect Tesla, have had a major change in priorities, brought on by a slowdown in EV demand and the rise of a swathe of low-cost competitors from China.
Musk – now the world’s richest man – has, this year, scrapped plans to mass produce an affordable EV and said Tesla would instead focus on robotaxis and self-driving vehicles.
The blog’s takedown also follows a change in the billionaire’s political views.
In a conversation with Republican US presidential nominee Donald Trump this month, Musk dismissed any urgent threat from increasing carbon emissions and also sounded support for the oil and gas industry.
“If we were to stop using oil and gas right now, we would all be starving and the economy would collapse,” Musk said in the two-hour chat with Trump on his social media platform X.
He added that the main threat from increasing emissions was that it would become to “difficult to breathe at some point” and that people would experience “headaches and nausea”.
Musk is endorsing Trump — also a climate change denier — in the upcoming November election. One expert described their rambling X conversation as “the dumbest climate conversation of all time”.
- Vishakha Saxena
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Tesla is S&P 500’s Worst Performing Stock of 2024 – Quartz
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