Elon Musk tried to whitewash Donald Trump’s disastrous climate record, but it didn’t work.

During a rambling, rambling two-hour “conversation” at X last night, Elon Musk told Donald Trump that climate change is real and that electric cars might not be as bad as the former president claimed on the campaign trail. The result was a feeble attempt by the once-praised environmentalist to whitewash the former president’s disastrous record on climate change.

After the failed assassination attempt on Trump, Musk, who supported him and funded a super PAC that supported his election, tried to appease Trump by offering his support for oil and gas drilling and minimizing the threat of climate change. But he also tried to persuade Trump by offering a MAGA-friendly proposition for his EV.

“When you look at our cars, we believe that environmentalism, caring for the environment, shouldn’t mean suffering,” Musk said. “That’s why we make sure that the cars are beautiful, fast, sexy and cool.”

It’s unclear whether Trump will be persuaded. Sure, the former president has become more positive about electric cars since Musk’s endorsement, but he still makes the same arguments against them: They take too long to charge, they don’t go that far, they’ll cost auto workers their jobs. And in Trump’s words, his record on the environment has been a total disaster.

During the conversation, Trump repeated this attack several times, while also praising Musk for creating a car that many people want to buy (even though Tesla’s sales are down).

“You make really great products,” Trump told Musk during a two-hour lovefest. “Honestly, that doesn’t mean everyone should have an electric car.”

During the campaign, Trump falsely accused President Joe Biden of trying to outlaw the purchase of gasoline-powered cars and force all Americans to switch to EVs. In fact, the EPA’s new fuel economy standards will require automakers to produce less polluting vehicles, many of which will be battery-powered, but will not mandate the sale of EVs. The administration has also introduced consumer incentives to help lower the cost of EVs.

But if anyone has changed his stance on EVs and climate change, it seems to be Musk. The Tesla CEO has tried to get Trump and his supporters to back his company’s mission to open up a sustainable future, but he has also played down the urgency of that mission.

“I don’t think we should blame the people in this industry who have worked very hard to provide the energy that powers the oil and gas industry and the economy,” Musk said.

Trump’s campaign has received millions of dollars from the oil and gas industry, and many CEOs expect Trump to roll back Biden’s environmental policies if he wins in November.

He later argued that the planet could transition to a sustainable energy economy “in 50 or 100 years,” despite warnings from the scientific community that humanity was rapidly reaching a tipping point on climate change.

And President Trump has argued that electric cars aren’t the perfect solution, because the electricity needed to charge their batteries will still come from fossil fuels until the grid transitions to clean energy.

“Even making electric cars and making the electricity that goes into those cars, you know, fossil fuels are actually making that at power plants,” the former president said. “You can’t get away from that now.”

Generating the electricity used to charge an EV can be polluting, but EVs themselves are widely known to have zero tailpipe emissions and are preferable to gas-powered vehicles. Many states are in the process of transitioning from fossil fuel-powered electricity generation to more renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind.

Musk and Trump seemed to agree that fighting climate change shouldn’t come at the expense of anyone’s personal discomfort. “We don’t need to stop farmers from farming,” Musk said, adding that “people can still eat steaks, they can still drive gasoline cars.”

Of course, these claims ignore the reality of climate change. Combating climate change requires both massive systemic changes and small individual behavioral changes. Cows and livestock are huge contributors to climate change, generating methane that is trapped in the atmosphere and warming the planet significantly. Meanwhile, cars generate carbon dioxide, another greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. We all need to eat less red meat and drive less to live more sustainably.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration’s policies have focused on forcing major industries, whether power plants, automakers or construction, to switch to less polluting energy sources. Trump’s record is one of rolling back these measures and inviting major industries to pollute more. And his Supreme Court nominees have made decisions that will make it harder for any future administration to protect the environment.

But Musk’s support for Trump’s nomination has cast doubt on the former’s commitment to clean energy. In interviews, Musk gently pushed his chosen candidate to support renewable energy such as solar, while Trump instead expressed skepticism that climate change is the most urgent threat.

“One thing I don’t understand is that people talk about global warming and climate change, but they never talk about nuclear warming,” Trump said, changing the subject. It was time to move on.