Tesla CEO Elon Musk stirred up a bit of controversy a few months ago when he joined President Trump’s s economic and manufacturing advisory councils. While Musk’s participation predictably generated no shortage of criticism, Musk maintained that he would use the position for “doing good” on a range of issues.
As Musk explained via Twitter earlier this year: “Advisory councils simply provide advice and attending does not mean that I agree with actions by the Administration. My goals are to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy and to help make humanity a multi-planet civilization, a consequence of which will be the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs and a more inspiring future for all.”
All that said, Elon Musk earlier today took to Twitter again and relayed that he will leave the councils if President Trump opts to pull out from the Paris climate agreement.
Will have no choice but to depart councils in that case
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 31, 2017
While nothing is officially confirmed in either direction just yet, Axios earlier today reported that Trump has already decided to withdraw. As a quick refresher, the Paris Agreement — as it’s sometimes called — is an all-encompassing agreement designed to stem the rise of global temperatures, with the express goal of “holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”
As for why Trump might be interested in pulling out of the agreement, CBS notes:
But pulling out of the agreement is popular with Mr. Trump’s political base, many of whom are skeptical of the science underlying climate change policy. Critics of the accord say the limits on emissions place an onerous and disproportionate burden on American businesses…
With Musk now on record stating that he will leave the aforementioned councils if the Trump rumors are true, it will be interesting to see how this all plays out over the next few days.
