Speaking at an event organized by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's party in Rome on December 16, Mr. Musk said that "warnings about climate change in the near future have been exaggerated," and that the environmental movement may have gone too far, causing people to lose faith in the future, according to Reuters.
Billionaire Elon Musk at an event in Rome on December 16
At the COP28 climate conference in Dubai this month, representatives of nearly 200 countries agreed to begin reducing fossil fuel consumption globally to prevent the most serious consequences of climate change, signaling that the age of oil is finally coming to an end.
Mr Musk, co-founder and CEO of Tesla, the world’s most valuable electric car company, said in Rome that he considered himself an environmentalist and said it was important in the long term for industries to reduce the billions of tonnes of carbon they take from the earth and release into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels.
“We should not demonize oil and gas in the medium term,” he said.
Asked whether his companies would invest in Italy, the world's richest man said he was worried about the country's falling birth rate.
“I think Italy is a great place to invest, but I want to emphasize that I am concerned about the low birth rate. If the workforce declines, who will work in this country?”, Mr. Musk replied.
He called on the Italian government to create incentives for families to have more children, saying a country cannot rely solely on immigration to fill the gap.
Italy has allocated around €1 billion in next year’s budget to tackle its population crisis. The number of babies born in Italy last year fell for the 14th consecutive year and was the lowest since the country was unified in 1861.
Speaking about social network X (formerly Twitter), Mr. Musk allayed concerns about declining advertising revenue on the platform, saying X "has seen advertisers come back."
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