Elon Musk Breaks With Trump on Energy: 'Oil Is Small-Time'
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Elon Musk appeared to contradict long-running efforts by President Donald Trump to promote fossil fuels over renewable energy on Monday, writing in a post on his X platform Tuesday morning: "Compared to solar, oil is small-time."
Why It Matters
Trump reignited the "drill, baby, drill" mantra during his 2024 campaign, declaring a national energy emergency and rolling back environmental regulations to boost U.S. oil and gas production.
Musk is a close ally of the president, with the billionaire Tesla owner spearheading efforts by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to reduce government spending.
Elon Musk flashes his T-shirt that reads "DOGE" to the media as he walks on the South Lawn of the White House on March 9, 2025.
Elon Musk flashes his T-shirt that reads "DOGE" to the media as he walks on the South Lawn of the White House on March 9, 2025.
Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press
What To Know
Musk's post featured a clip from the DER Task Force podcast, which included an interview with Jesse Peltan, co-founder and CTO of HODL Ranch, a developer of Bitcoin mining projects in Texas.
"China's still growing exponentially on their solar deployments," Peltan said in the clip.
"The targets for what their solar and battery manufacturing capacity...what that could do, if you take two terawatts of solar, and about eight terawatt-hours of storage, that's an entire U.S. worth of electricity generation."
"That's 4,000 terawatt-hours a year of 24/7 solar power. They're going to be able to make that every single year...by like 2030," Peltan added.
Upon reentering office, Trump signed executive orders to expand fossil fuel development, including lifting a pause on liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports and withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement.
"We will be a rich nation again, and it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it," Trump said in his inaugural address.
The administration's policies led to the cancellation, closing, or downsizing of $8 billion worth of clean energy projects in the first quarter of 2025, according to a study by the nonpartisan group E2 published in April.
Trump has also urged U.S. allies to increase oil extraction and reduce their reliance on green energy. He urged British Prime Minister Keir Starmer last week to abandon its "costly and unsightly windmills" in favor of increased oil drilling in the North Sea.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump claimed that tapping into the North Sea's oil reserves could significantly reduce Britain's energy costs, suggesting Aberdeen as a central hub for drilling operations.
"Our negotiated deal with the United Kingdom is working out well for all. I strongly recommend to them, however, that in order to get their energy costs down, they stop with the costly and unsightly windmills, and incentivize modernized drilling in the North Sea, where large amounts of oil lay waiting to be taken. A century of drilling left, with Aberdeen as the hub," he wrote.
"The old fashioned tax system disincentivizes drilling, rather than the opposite. U.K.'s Energy Costs would go WAY DOWN, and fast!"
What People Are Saying
President Donald Trump, in his inaugural address: "America will be a manufacturing nation once again, and we have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have—the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on earth—and we are going to use it. We'll use it."
What Happens Next
Vice President JD Vance told Fox News in April that Musk would "remain a friend and an adviser" to both him and the president after he leaves DOGE.
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