Elon Musk Says That Civilization 'Will Crumble' If We Transition From Oil and Gas Too Quickly

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk spoke at a conference in Norway on Monday, and amid his announcement that he plans to have self-driving Teslas on the market by the end of the year, he made the admission to reporters that the transition away from fossil fuels is happening too quickly.

Reuters reports that Musk told reporters he thinks “we need to use oil and gas in the short term, because otherwise civilization will crumble.”

“One of the biggest challenges the world has ever faced is the transition to sustainable energy and to a sustainable economy,” he added. “That will take some decades to complete.”

This isn’t the first time Musk has expressed the opinion that we still need to rely on oil and gas even as we look for more sources of energy. Shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he tweeted that oil and gas production was necessary.

In a reply to himself, Musk said that “sustainable energy solutions simply cannot react instantaneously to make up for Russian oil & gas exports.”