Nadir Godrej, chairman of Godrej Industries Group, on Wednesday urged the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, to do more to make the world a better place for his children.
Speaking at the Mumbai Climate Week (MCW) 2026, 75-year-old Godrej also said that Gen Z and Gen Alpha should be concerned about the climate crisis and work hard to mitigate it.
“They should be very afraid and then they should work hard so they can have hope,” he said.
Asked if he had a message for Musk, Godrej said the Tesla CEO should work to ensure a better future for his 14 children.
“Elon Musk, you have a lot of children. Take care of their future,” Godrej said.
How climate policy helped Musk
Musk and Tesla have been the biggest recipients of carbon credits, with the EV maker earning more than $10 billion to $11 billion since 2014 in revenue from selling regulatory credits to other automakers.
In 2024 alone, Tesla earned a record $2.76 billion by selling regulatory credits to competitors who failed to meet emissions standards.
Musk’s views on climate change
However, Musk’s views on climate change and the urgency of dealing with it have shifted considerably in recent years, from urgent advocacy to a more moderate, technology-focused perspective.
In 2024, while Musk acknowledged that climate change was real, he claimed it was “much slower than the alarmists claim.” According to Musk, humanity has “50 or 100 years” to transition to sustainable energy, something many scientists question.
In recent years, Musk has focused on the risk of civilizational collapse and a population crisis due to low birth rates, especially in the Western world. This is in contrast to his stance almost a decade ago, when he said: “Climate change is the biggest threat facing humanity this century, apart from artificial intelligence”.