Elon Musk introduces his new right-wing fans to a carbon tax; goes as well as you’d expect
Elon Musk is introducing his new right-wing fans to the idea of implementing a carbon tax, and it goes about as well as you would expect.
Over the last few years, Musk has become a sort of hero of the right.
Regardless of where you stand politically, it is a fascinating situation. I remember not too long ago when the right consistently attacked him for taking advantage of government subsidies at his companies.
A few years later, he buys Twitter, reinstates some previously banned conservative accounts, makes fun of Joe Biden and other democrats, starts to talk about “wokeness” and illegal immigration consistently, and now he is loved by the right.
Through this period, the once zealot climate change warrior who quit President Trump’s business council because he withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement, started talking a lot less about climate change and Tesla’s mission to accelerate to world’s transition to renewable energy.
On top of running six different companies, Tesla’s CEO is virtually a full-time political influencer now.
It is creating an interesting situation. For the first time in a while, Musk decided to use his massively popular X account to promote an idea perceived as left-wing (even though it shouldn’t be political): a carbon tax.
Musk wrote:
Musk has been pushing the idea of a carbon tax for a long time, and it’s interesting to see him introducing the idea to his new right-wing fans.
As you can imagine, it didn’t go too well.
Most of the top-voted comments underneath his post were responses that were quite negative. Here are a few examples:
I had to go down about 50 responses to see a positive response to Musk’s comment. It appears that for better or worse, Musk’s X profile is now dominated by his new right-wing fans.
Electrek’s Take
I am the first to admit that a carbon tax is difficult to implement correctly. In theory, it makes a ton of sense. In fact, free-market conservatives should love it since it fixes the market.
A free market only works if it’s fair and all external costs are accounted for. If external costs are not accounted for, the market becomes inefficient and fails.
A carbon tax accounts for the external costs of emitting carbon. It fixes the market inefficiency – making the true costs (including environmental) accounted for in the costs of the products. The products best for the environment would come up on top.
Now, to agree with that, you need to agree with the vast majority of environmental scientists who say that humanity’s carbon production is contributing to the acceleration of the Earth’s warming.
Yes, the climate has always naturally changed for billions of years, but it doesn’t mean that humans starting to pump billions of metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year is not accelerating it. The data looks clear.
For example, the amount of solar energy the earth is receiving has followed the natural cycle of the sun, and yet, global temperature has increased massively amid increased industrialization:
Therefore, at the very least, we can agree that products emitting less carbon over their entire life cycle are less risky of negatively affecting the environment. So why take more risk?
So, a carbon tax would, at the very least, help reduce the risk of this crazy experiment that humanity is conducting by unearthing carbon and burning it into the atmosphere in incredible amounts.
Now, I agree it’s hard to implement correctly. There are a lot of different aspects to it. For example, it works best if it’s global. Everyone needs to get on board. There’s the idea that the US shouldn’t get involved unless everyone gets involved, but that’s a decision between being a positive leader or accepting to be part of the problem because others don’t want to be part of the solution. I don’t like that mentality.
Also, it needs to be meaningful with a fair price. There have been carbon taxes before, but they had minimal impact because they haven’t really accounted for the trillions of dollars that burning fossil fuels costs worldwide every year.
It’s an incredibly difficult tax to make it fair, but I think it’s one worth doing. There could be a way to do it while reducing other taxes and encouraging people to live lifestyles that emit less carbon. And if you want to keep doing it, you can. It’s just that now it will reflect the true costs of the products.
As a side note, I hate to get too political. I’m not a very political person. I don’t believe that a lot of truly meaningful change in history came from politics and politicians. I don’t consider myself left or right. I approach every issue with an open mind. Please keep that in mind before for call me a leftist for endorsing a carbon tax.
In fact, I think we should go back to the days when this was a bipartisan issue in the US. Conservatives often claim that their side has the better economic policy, and nearly every economist is in favor of a carbon price – because unpriced externalities are a market inefficiency, and a carbon price solves that. Plus, a group of influential republican luminaries, including Bush and Reagan’s Secretaries of State George Shultz and James Baker, Bush’s Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, and conservative economist Greg Mankiw have all endorsed a carbon price.
One of the main problems is that it’s called a carbon “tax,” and many people, especially conservatives, have a visceral reaction to that word. If that’s your case, please try to get past it and understand the reasoning behind it.
Finally, please keep the comment section civil.
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Tesla has quietly expanded its new MultiPass feature to more regions across Europe, allowing owners to charge at third-party stations directly through their Tesla account — no separate app, card, or registration required.
The feature, which first launched in the Netherlands earlier this year, is now rolling out to additional countries, including Germany and France, according to Tesla’s own support page. The update builds on Tesla’s push to make charging as frictionless as possible — not just at Superchargers, but across an entire network of compatible public chargers.
What is Tesla MultiPass?
Tesla describes MultiPass as a “seamless charging option” that lets drivers find and charge at third-party charging stations using their existing Tesla Account. By partnering with a network aggregator, Tesla now connects to over 1,000 charging networks and thousands of stations across Europe.
In practice, MultiPass aims to make the charging experience at third-party stations as close to a Tesla Supercharger as possible — you can simply tap your Tesla key card or select the stall in your Tesla app at a supported charger, and the cost of the session is automatically billed to your Tesla account. The same payment method used for Supercharging applies, and sessions appear right in your Tesla app’s charging history, unified with your Supercharger activity.
Tesla’s goal is to reduce the number of sign-ups and third-party accounts you need to charge outside of Tesla’s own network. MultiPass turns the Tesla key card into a universal charging credential.
Tesla owners simply need to activate MultiPass through the Tesla app:
- Open the Tesla app and check “Messages” for the MultiPass invitation
- Tap Learn More → Next
- Follow on-screen steps to activate your key card via NFC
Once activated, you can start charging sessions in two ways:
- Tap your key card directly on the supported third-party charger
- Or, start the session in the Tesla app, selecting the stall remotely
Your session appears instantly in the app, complete with cost and time details, just like any Tesla Supercharger session.
Electrek’s Take
Tesla already operates the world’s most reliable and extensive DC fast-charging network. Supercharger is probably the best thing Tesla has ever done.
But outside of the Supercharger footprint, especially in Europe’s dense urban areas, third-party chargers fill critical gaps.
MultiPass eliminates one of the last friction points for Tesla drivers to use these third-party charging stations.
It looks like after a short testing phase in the Netherlands, Tesla is now ready to expand access throughout Europe.
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Environment
It seems like Elon Musk stoking a civil war in England isn’t good for Tesla’s sales there
Tesla’s EV registrations in the UK, its biggest market in Europe, took a dramatic hit in October 2025 — just 511 units — marking one of the brand’s weakest showings in recent memory. That’s a steep drop from 971 in October 2024 and 2,677 in October 2023. The tone of the market is shifting.
Maybe Tesla’s CEO stoking a civil war in England isn’t helping the automaker’s demand in the important market.
Tesla’s sales have been struggling in Europe over the past two years, and the decline has been accelerating in 2025.
While some believed that things were stabilizing for the American automaker in Europe, the October data tells a different story. Tesla had its worst month of deliveries of the year in 12 of its 15 biggest European markets.
As Tesla sales in Germany crashed over the last year, partly because Tesla CEO Elon Musk supported the far-right AfD party, the UK became Tesla’s biggest market in Europe.
But now it looks like the UK is going in the same direction.
According to registration data, Tesla delivered only 511 vehicles in the UK in October 2025. Tesla has over 50 stores in the country – that’s an average of roughly 10 vehicles per location for the whole month.
It’s the worst monthly performance since October 2022.
Much as Tesla’s demand crashed in Germany, Elon Musk’s politics might be behind the lower demand in the UK.
The CEO regularly comments on UK politics and often shares inflammatory reports about crimes perpetrated by immigrants. He also shares misleading crime and immigration statistics aimed at spreading hatred.
After he tweeted that “Civil war is inevitable. Just a question of when.”, he was accused of stoking a civil war in the country.
Musk’s public commentary on UK topics has sparked backlash and resulted in his “unfavorability rating” reaching 80% in the country.
Electrek’s Take
Meanwhile, Tesla’s demand cliff is opening the door to competitors. BYD is now expected to outsell Tesla in the whole year of 2025 in the UK despite Tesla having a presence in the market for much longer.
Not many industry watchers thought it would happen this fast.
Tesla appears to be completely missing out on the surge of EV sales in Europe due to a mix of having a stagnant EV lineup, brand problems brought on by a controversial CEO, and increased competition.
In the US, Musk is believed to have cost Tesla about 1 million sales over the last 3 years.
I think it will soon be approaching this number in Europe.
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Rondo Energy and energy producer EDP are installing a massive 100 MWh renewable-powered heat battery at HEINEKEN’s brewery in Lisbon, Portugal. The project will deliver round-the-clock renewable steam and reduce emissions without altering the facility’s beer brewing process.
Brewing HEINEKEN with zero-carbon steam
The Rondo Heat Battery (RHB) will be the biggest deployed in the beverage industry worldwide. It can store electricity as high-temperature heat using refractory bricks, then convert that heat into 24/7 steam, all without burning fossil fuels.
At HEINEKEN’s Central de Cervejas e Bebidas Brewery and Malting Plant, the heat battery system will supply 7 MW of steam, powered by renewable electricity from onsite solar and the grid. That steam is identical to steam created by gas-fired boilers, but without the carbon pollution.
EDP is providing the renewable electricity and will deliver the steam directly to HEINEKEN via a Heat-as-a-Service model. Rondo is supplying the battery, and HEINEKEN gets to ditch fossil fuels without retooling its brewing process.
Why this matters
This project is a big win for industrial decarbonization. High-temperature steam is one of the most complex parts of manufacturing to electrify, and the beer industry runs on it. HEINEKEN’s Lisbon site already uses solar panels for electricity and electric heat pumps for hot water, and this move helps it go even further.
It’s part of HEINEKEN’s “Brew a Better World” plan to hit net zero emissions by 2040 and decarbonize all of its global production sites by 2030.
Additionally, the deployment aligns with Portugal’s national target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030.
The bigger picture
With the European Investment Bank and Breakthrough Energy Catalyst backing this and other Rondo projects with €75 million in funding, this Lisbon installation is just the beginning. Rondo’s technology enables energy-hungry industries to switch from fossil fuels to renewable electricity without compromising 24/7 operations.
Rondo CEO Eric Trusiewicz sums it up: “We are thrilled to be installing our first Rondo Heat Battery in Iberia, and to support HEINEKEN to reach its goals. We look forward to helping industries across Iberia cut costs and carbon, and help Iberia capitalize on the opportunity.”
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