Elon Musk Recently Spoke To Donald Trump About Paris Climate Agreement — Is Cautiously Optimistic
A few weeks back, Tesla & SpaceX CEO Elon Musk took some heat for serving on a couple of Donald Trump’s advisory panels. More than a few people thought he should refuse to offer any support to a putative president who is so aggressively anti-environment. One fellow in California was so upset with Musk that he paid for billboards outside of Tesla and SpaceX headquarters, asking Musk to sever his relationship with Trump.
Elon refused, saying it was better to have a seat at the table than to have no voice at all. Since then, the controversy has died down, but Musk responded to a question on Twitter today this way:
I spoke directly with The President three weeks ago about Paris. Many others have too. Cautiously optimistic of a positive decision.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 22, 2017
Cautiously optimistic may be as much as we can hope for from our man-child president who lurches like a drunk from one point of view to another on important issues. A few weeks ago, he was poised to slam the door on NAFTA, then decided a few hours later to seek a few modifications instead. During the campaign, he vilified Saudi Arabia for its archaic views about women and its anti-gay polices, then he was seen doing the famous Saudi sword dance with his Saudi hosts during a state visit. He blustered and thundered about building a wall along the Mexican border, but has apparently lost interest in that proposal now that the election is over.
Elon tweeted about the start of production for the Tesla Model 3 and a new software update for the second-generation Autopilot system yesterday morning, but had several more things on his mind later. He indicated (again) that all-wheel-drive versions of the Model 3 would not be available until 2018.
Early next year. To start with, we're making the simplest Model 3 first, like we did with S. Didn't do it with X, because I was an idiot.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 22, 2017
That last part is pretty humorous. Musk was the one insisting on the falcon-wing doors for the Model X, a feature that delayed full production for nearly a year and brought a torrent of negative publicity down on the company. It’s not every business leader who can admit that perhaps he might have been mistaken about something. Tesla also rolled out the most highly optioned Model X SUVs to customers first, something that seemingly didn’t go too well.
Musk also tweeted that Tesla could add a WiFi hotspot to its cars fairly easily once it figured out the proper billing software, and could offer a 360 degree video view of the world around the cars — an idea that is already under development — but he added that such a feature could be a “bit distracting.” All in all, a pretty full day of tweeting for Musk.
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