Elon Musk is not in the car business; he is a pollution salesman.
As a car company, Tesla is effectively bankrupt. This past quarter Tesla’s reported profits were only $405 million, a profit shown only because he sold “emissions credits” to General Motors and other car companies to the tune of $595 million.
In other words, he’s not in the car business, but in the business of selling the right to pollute. He helps GM sell Chevy Tahoe’s that get 15 mpg.
That is because Musk is a master of conjuring money out of thin air, or more accurately, dirty air.
So, my dear green friends, when you buy a Tesla, you’re not reducing your carbon footprint by a quarter inch, because Musk is selling your good intentions to General Motors so they can pollute more. It’s like when the medieval Catholic Church sold indulgences, so your relatives didn’t have to go to hell.
When you buy a Tesla, you’ve actually increased your total carbon footprint because Tesla will sell your so-called “emissions savings” while your car is still producing a huge amount of carbon. There ain’t no such thing as an “emissions free” car, because even Musk can’t get away with violating the law, Newton’s 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. When you buy your Tesla, you’ve moved your pollution from the tailpipe to the electric plant smokestack. For the pinheads who operate their Teslas in Wyoming, that means your car is 100% powered by coal.
Climate change is the looming hell on Earth which no amount of pollution indulgences from Musk will change, no matter how much your friends in Beverly Hills congratulate you on your baloney virtue.
Learn more, see ‘Elon Musk: Batteries Not Included’
Greg will be posting a new weekly column on Substack.
Sign up for it here.
Journalist Greg Palast, a columnist for Raw Story, has been investigating power, corruption, and racial vote suppression for 25 years for The Guardian, Democracy Now!, BBC News and The Hartmann Report. His work is funded by the non-partisan, not-for-profit Palast Investigative Fund. We can only do this work with your tax-deductible donation.
Reprints permitted with attribution.
Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, Armed Madhouse, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits and the book and documentary, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.
His latest film is All Washed Away: The Untold Story of the Drowning of New Orleans and Texas. Palast is currently working on a new documentary Long Knife, exposing the Koch Brothers' theft of Osage oil, to be released in 2025.
Support The Palast Investigative Fund with a donation and keep our work alive. Become a monthly Contributor.
Subscribe to Palast's Newsletter