On Thursday(Jan 21), Billionaire entrepreneur and Tesla chief Elon musk twitted to promise a US$100 million prize to a person or group who creates the “best” technology to capture carbon dioxide emissions. Musk added that he would provide more details next week.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX made the news as he became the richest person on the planet surpassing Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. But due to slide in Tesla’s stock price he was dropped back to his spot .He recently asked his twitter followers for advice on how to give away his money in best way.
In 2012,Musk signed an initiative which was launched by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to donate at least their half of money in their lifetime. He has already donated about $100M which is less than his 1% of his total net worth as by the estimation done by the Forbes in September. The $100M offer by Musk as a Carbon-capture contest surely plays a major role in fighting climate change .
Musk, who cofounded Internet payments company PayPal Holdings, later sold it ,now leads some of the most futuristic companies in the world. He runs rocket company SpaceX and Tesla .Besides these he heads Neuralink, a startup to develop ultra-high bandwidth brain-machine interfaces to connect the human brain to computers.
US President Joe Biden has advised to accelerate the development of carbon capture technology as his pan to tackle climate change He recently appointed Jennifer Wilcox, expert in carbon removal technologies, as the principal deputy assistant secretary for fossil energy at the US Department of Energy.
Musk contest definitely encourages more innovative carbon-capture technologies. So this contest is likely to play major role in making difference in climate change, especially under the Biden administration.
