Elon Musk Quietly Bought a Medium Sized Fossil Fuel Energy Company Back in May

Elon Musk quietly acquired APR Energy, a $1 billion fossil fuel company with 800 employees, in May 2026, according to FTC documents. The purchase provides mobile gas turbines for data centers powering AI like Grok, contradicting Musk's past statements on carbon pricing.

As I pointed out earlier this year https://gizmodo.com/former-climate-hero-wins-permit-for-41-gas-turbines-in-mississippi-2000732189 when he obtained a permit for dozens of gas turbines to operate the data centers that power such AI innovations as Grok, Elon Musk said a bunch of things about how capitalism’s failures had made fossil fuels profitable during an interview back in 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYC23aFFX M Here’s a sample: … because there’s no price on carbon emissions it makes things that are carbon-producing very rewarding, because the true price is not being paid. So if you’re a petrochemical engineer you can earn a tremendous amount of money, but you shouldn’t really be earning that huge amount of money. Anyway, as Electrek noticed yesterday https://electrek.co/2026/07/14/musk-buys-gas-turbine-company-apr-energy-grok/ , back in May, Musk bought a medium sized fossil fuel energy company called APR Energy that provides mobile gas powered turbines for generating electricity. Documents posted to the FTC website https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/early-termination-notices/20261350 confirm that the “acquiring party” is Elon Musk the individual—not, say, SpaceX. But there wasn’t any publicity blitz or press release about the acquisition, and a site search of the APR Energy website for “Musk” produces zero results. And it’s not a small company. Electrek estimates the size at $1 billion. The bio for the CEO on the APR energy website notes that the company has 800 employees https://www.aprenergy.com/about/leadership/ . And it has a YouTube channel: Congratulations to Elon Musk on his exciting new business venture.