A 2006 blog in which Tesla CEO Elon Musk outlined his views on climate change and his broader vision for the electric vehicle maker has disappeared from the company’s website, according to a report by Forbes.
“Our long-term plan is to build a broad range of models, including affordable family cars,” Elon Musk wrote in the post. “That’s because the overarching purpose of Tesla Motors (and the reason I fund the company) is to accelerate the transition from an economy based on mining and burning hydrocarbons to one powered by solar power,” he said.
The blog was published a few days after Tesla’s first-ever public event, where the company unveiled its first electric car, the Roadster. Forbes notedThe manifesto serves as a declaration of intent for the company, makes it a darling of the environmental community and helps Tesla raise capital for its IPO in 2010, it said.
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But this post is no longer available on Tesla’s blog, nor are any other posts prior to 2019.
The purge comes at a time when Musk, and Tesla, have fundamentally changed their priorities, triggered by a decline in demand for electric vehicles and the rise of a whole series of low-cost competitors from China.
Musk – today the richest man in the world – has this year Plans to mass produce an affordable electric vehicle abandoned and said Tesla would instead focus on robotaxis and self-driving vehicles.
The closure of the blog is also a consequence of a change in the billionaire’s political views.
In a conversation with Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump this month, Musk dismissed any immediate threat from rising carbon dioxide emissions while expressing support for the oil and gas industry.
“If we stopped using oil and gas now, we would all starve and the economy would collapse,” Musk said in the two-hour chat with Trump on his social media platform X.
He added that the biggest danger from increasing emissions is that breathing will “eventually become difficult” and people will get “headaches and nausea.”
Musk is supporting Trump – also a climate change denier – in the upcoming November election. One expert described their rambling X-conversation as “The stupidest climate talk of all time”.
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