Despite saying climate crisis is an existential threat, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO said he may vote for Donald Trump. With just five weeks to go until the US presidential election, Elon Musk is still an undecided voter, The Independent has learned.
The billionaire offered up a controversial answer when asked if he would be voting for Donald Trump. “Um, let’s just see how the debates go,” Elon Musk said in a podcast.
While the first of debates is slated for Tuesday, Musk believes that televised discussions will be the determining factor for his vote. “I think that’s probably the thing that will decide things for America. I think people just want to see if Biden’s got it together. … If he does, he probably wins,” Musk added.
Commenting on his own political preferences, Musk confessed he is not communist, and this thing is only for sure. He went on to describe his political views as “socially very liberal and then economically right of centre, maybe, or center? I don’t know. Obviously I’m not a communist”.
When it comes to Tesla and electric cars, President Trump has been “as supportive as he can be”, Musk claimed, given the massive support he has from the oil and gas industries.
“I have spoken to the president about sustainable energy many times,” Musk said. “There are times when he’s been supportive, but then, at the end of the day, he has got way more support from the oil and gas industry because it’s way bigger. The electric car industry is small.”
Elon Musk comments on his 2020 vote come as a surprise
Musk’s comments may come as a surprise, considering he’s long championed sustainable energy and fighting climate change, neither of which have been priorities for the Trump administration. In 2017, he gave up his seat on Trump’s advisory council after the president decided to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement.
However, the president and the billionaire inventor have recently appeared to be on good terms again. Earlier this year, Trump attended the SpaceX and NASA astronaut launch in Florida, and he publicly defended Musk’s calls to resume production at Tesla’s California plant amid the unexpected epidemic caused by the novel pathogen.
Earlier, Musk preferred not to support publicly the Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. As an illustration, the SpaceX CEO boss said at the time that Trump was “probably not the right guy” to lead the country because he “doesn’t seem to have the sort of character that reflects well on the United States.” In 2020, Musk has previously back others for the 2020 presidential race, including Kim Kardashian’s husband.
