- Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he was proposing a carbon tax to the Biden government.
- The idea is rejected because it is ‘too politically difficult’, he said on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
- Musk has been advocating for a carbon tax since 2015.
- Visit the Insider Business Department for more stories.
Elon Musk says he proposed a carbon tax to the Biden government, but the idea was dismissed as too divisive.
The Tesla CEO appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast on Thursday and said: ‘I talked to the Biden administration – incoming administration – and they were like’ well, that seems too politically difficult ‘. “
Musk did not say when he spoke to Biden’s government, but called it “incoming” twice, indicating that the conversation took place before the inauguration of President Joe Biden on January 20.
He added that his space exploration company SpaceX would pay any carbon tax. Bloomberg reported last month that SpaceX was trying to get regulatory permission to drill for natural gas in Texas.
“I think the Biden government needs to take a strong stand on the situation,” Musk said. “It’s like half the reason they were elected.”
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Biden’s manifesto on climate change never included a carbon tax, although he emphasized environmental policy during his campaign, and on his first day as president rejoined the Paris climate agreement.
“The Paris Agreement, it’s just a piece of paper unless you do something about it,” Musk said, calling it “fairly toothless.”
This is not the first time Musk has made a fuss about a carbon tax. The Tesla billionaire first asked for one during a speech at the Sorbonne in Paris in 2015. In 2017, while acting as an adviser to the Trump administration, Musk apparently also insisted on a carbon tax.
Musk left the two advisory boards he sat for the Trump White House in June 2017 after Trump withdrew from the Paris climate agreement.
In his interview with Rogan, Musk said that CO2 production is currently an unlimited externality, meaning there are no market incentives to avoid the use of fossil fuels. “If we just put a price on it, the market would respond in a meaningful way,” he said.
He also called on the oil and gas industry to stop working against a carbon tax, saying the ‘smartest thing’ they could do was support it to escape a bad public image.
Musk’s appearance on Rogan’s podcast came four days after the billionaire revealed details of a $ 100 million competition he is funding for carbon capture technology.
Musk also recently received criticism over its commitments to climate change, after Tesla announced it would accept payments in Bitcoin. The Bitcoin mining process consumes more electricity annually than some countries, including Argentina.