Elon Musk trolled this Guardian report about his Trump chat and this professor’s magnificent comeback was simply epic
Elon Musk’s much-hyped chat with Donald Trump was memorable mostly for an unfortunate tech failure and speculation over the state of Donald Trump’s teeth.
We mention it again because the Guardian did a deep dive – they probably didn’t have to go that deep – to fact check what the pair had to say, specifically about climate change, and you might not be surprised by the result.
‘The dumbest climate conversation of all time’: experts on the Musk-Trump interview. Infact soooo dumb, it should not be just called dumb. https://t.co/YUn04KEyV6
— Vinod Khosla (@vkhosla) August 14, 2024
The dumbest conversation of all time – well, at least until the pair of them have another one.
It naturally caught the eye of Musk himself, who had this to say.
My little finger nail knows more about climate issues than the entire staff of The Guardian.
Wtf are you talking about?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 14, 2024
And this.
Did you actually listen to the conversation?
The Guardian is trash.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 14, 2024
Probably no greater compliment for the Guardian, that.
But we mention it because Musk’s trolling was spotted by one of the people quoted in the Guardian piece, and their response was sheer perfection.
The comments in the @Guardian piece are mine @ElonMusk. If you've got a beef, take it up with me. https://t.co/WNzrA5XZEi
— Prof Michael E. Mann (@MichaelEMann) August 14, 2024
Boom.
Here’s a little bit of what Prof Mann had to say in the piece (and read the whole thing here).
“The damaging impacts of climate change, and in particular from more extreme weather events, such as wildfires, floods, heatwaves, more intense hurricanes, are actually in many respects exceeding the predictions made just a decade ago,” said Michael Mann, a leading climate scientist and author. “It is sad that Elon Musk has become a climate change denier, but that’s what he is. He’s literally denying what the science has to say here.”
Mann said that if CO2 levels get so high breathing becomes difficult, then the impacts of the climate crisis “will be so devastating as to have already caused societal collapse. It’s actually Elon’s ill-informed and ill-premised statements that are causing headaches and nausea.”
Mann added that Trump’s statement that sea level rise will lead to more oceanfront property “does not betray a lack of understanding of climate physics. It betrays a lack of understanding of grade school geometry.”
Musk doesn’t appear to have taken up the challenge at the time of writing, but we’ll be sure to keep an eye out!
Source @MichaelEMann
