If you are at all informed of current scientific advances, you have probably heard of Elon Musk. The 45-year-old CEO of Tesla and SpaceX is worth a whopping $13.2 billion, making him the 87th richest person on Earth. Musk also ranks as the 15th richest person in the tech industry and the 37th richest person in America (Forbes, 2017). Musk has done it all: rockets, tunnels, the Hyperloop bullet train, and most notably, the Tesla electric car that made him a household name. It goes without saying that Musk has substantial power over the auto industry and the budding commercialization of space travel. Naturally, President Donald Trump named Musk to an advisory committee about a month before taking office.
The President’s Strategic and Policy Forum, according to the Trump-Pence administration team, has the responsibility of assisting the administration in developing policy that may be beneficial to both Americans and businesses from the viewpoint of a conglomerate of titans of said business. Elon Musk, in a statement he released on his Twitter account, cited the ongoing refugee crisis and climate change as topics of concern.
The Trump administration is no stranger to conflicts of interest. Upon refusal to divest his business holdings within his company, Trump handed the reins over to his son, but that still keeps his massive fortune within the family. Choosing to fill an advisory board entirely with big business CEOs reinforces Trump’s associations with profit, not the well-being of the American people.
Musk, one could argue, surely has some sort of moral objection to the denial of climate change. After all, he has publicly been against everything Trump has had to say on the subject. It seems that he agreed to joining the advisory board with pure intentions of bringing the reality of climate change to light, but I remain skeptical. As long as climate change exists, people will continue to purchase hybrid and electric cars. It’s simple economic law. Consumers are more willing to spend money on goods that provide an incentive, the main incentive in this case being a shiny new luxury vehicle without the guilt associated with gas-guzzling sports cars. People like to think that they’re helping the planet with their purchases.
Logic says that if everyone buys a Tesla, the climate change issue resolves itself. Except for the issue that Teslas may not be as environmentally friendly as the company advertises them to be. According to a 2016 study by Devonshire Research Group, the power a Tesla harvests from a coal-fueled energy grid is almost as harmful as driving a gas-powered car. Emissions are reduced by almost half because the car is electric, but the environmental impact that comes from the manufacture of the electric car is greater than that of a gas-powered car. The real danger to the environment isn’t carbon emissions. It’s massive consumption.
Your purchase of an electric vehicle may make you feel like a model citizen, but the reality is that you are doing just as much harm to the environment as you were before, and Elon Musk is lining his pockets with the minimum 75 grand you just dropped on a Model S.
People like to assume the best in other people, especially celebrities that we look up to even though we have little to no knowledge of their personal lives or the inner workings of their brains. It would be highly beneficial for the country if Elon Musk was just super into saving the polar bears, but his assets show us that that assumption is not realistic.
Make no mistake: Trump and his friends are benefitting tremendously from government positions. Being a public servant and making a profit should be two completely separate entities. Even though Elon Musk has never been a Trump supporter, he is currently in a position to make decisions that will be profitable for his business ventures, even if those decisions are under the guise of saving the environment. If he can sway Donald Trump even remotely on climate change, he profits from both left and right-wing customers. If not, people who are not climate change deniers will spend more money on Teslas to respond to the lack of executive action. Elon Musk will profit from being on this committee. The environment will not.
It is almost hard to blame Musk for taking advantage of this opportunity. After all, it is his job. Is it really fair of Americans to bring his moral compass into question? When it comes to our leadership and those advising it, I give a resounding yes.
If Trump really wanted to do something beneficial for the American people, he would fill the Strategic and Policy Forum with a collection of unaffiliated economists and researchers. There is no doubt in my mind that Elon Musk is a brilliant man of science, but the fact that he is also a brilliant businessman makes him unqualified to be a policy advisor.
Emma Royal is a freshman majoring in aerospace engineering. Her column runs biweekly.
