Elon Musk says he's 'super fired up' for fighting climate change with Joe Biden
- Elon Musk is 'fired up' to help the Biden administration on climate change.
- The Tesla and SpaceX CEO told Fortune he's hopeful that they can make progress on the environment.
- Musk is currently running a competition to give a $100 million prize to the best carbon capture technology.
Elon Musk is 'super fired up' about President Joe Biden's focus on the environment and wants to find a way to help out on the administration's initiatives for expanding green energy and fighting climate change, the billionaire CEO told Fortune Magazine.
The Tesla, SpaceX, and Boring Company founder, who has been going back and forth with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos for the top spot as the richest person in the world over the past few weeks, is looking for more ways to give back his massive fortune in addition to his ultimate dream of creating a live-able colony on Mars.
Musk announced on Thursday that he's holding a contest to give $100 million to the company or startup with the best plan for carbon-capture technology, a promising method of geoengineering that removes the presence of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and stores it.
Biden's extensive campaign plan for climate change stated that "he will double down on federal investments and enhance tax incentives for [carbon capture, use, and storage]" and "continue to fund carbon capture research, development, and demonstration."
"I think this is great. I feel very optimistic about the future of sustainable energy with the new administration," Musk told Fortune of the Biden team's plans, joking to the outlet that he wants to make contact with the administration but knows they've been busy in their first week in office. "Not that we should get complacent or anything, but the wind is at our back for solving the climate crisis with the new administration."
Musk's scientific and business ventures could get a huge boost from a Biden administration's focus on green innovation, especially with expanded tax credits and investments in new technologies, in addition to encouraging more companies to enter the electric vehicle and green energy market.
As Business Insider's Matthew DeBord recently reported, Tesla stands to massively gain from a renewed focus on green energy not only because of its flagship electric vehicle business but also its manufacturing and sales of solar energy products, energy storage, and lithium-ion batteries.
Read more: Elon Musk's move to Texas is a publicity stunt that reveals how Tesla is maturing as an automaker
As Fortune noted, Musk has both allied with and clashed with politicians from both parties, and previously dodged questions of whether he would vote for Biden or former President Donald Trump.
Musk initially served on two of Trump's advisory boards but quit after the Trump administration withdrew the US from the Paris Climate Accords.
Musk told the outlet that he "took him pretty much at his word, that he would really mean it" of Trump's climate plans.
The afternoon of his inauguration, Biden signed a number of climate-related executive orders to reenter the United States into the Paris agreement, halt offshore drilling in the Arctic Circle, and terminating the US' permit for construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
In the 2020 cycle, Musk donated the maximum amount permitted to campaigns of senators from both parties who sit on key committees relevant to his business interests, including Republican Sens. Thom Tillis, John Cornyn, Dan Sullivan, and Joni Ernst, and Democrats Jeanne Shaheen, Gary Peters, and Chris Coons, Federal Election Commission records show.