X users — including platform owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk — took Secretary of Energy Chris Wright to task over his perplexingly inaccurate claims about solar power.
On Monday, Secretary Wright tweeted: "Even if you wrapped the entire planet in a solar panel, you would only be producing 20% of global energy."
X user Maine (@TheMaineWonk) shared a screenshot of Wright's tweet, pointing out that the Secretary of Energy was fact-checked by the community for what appeared to be a fundamentally poor understanding of solar functionality.
Musk, whose high-profile break with President Donald Trump appeared to hinge on electric vehicle subsidies, weighed in on related statements made by Wright and reiterated in a tweet later that day.
"Tragic," Musk's one-word reply read.
Wright's claim that total Earth solar panel coverage would top out at 20% of worldwide energy requirements was bizarre at best.
In 2021, the London-based energy think tank Carbon Tracker found that by that time, renewables were already capable of meeting "more than 100 times global energy demand," and that's without wrapping the entire planet in solar but just through normal application of the tech.
In October, the U.S. Energy Information Administration — which is the statistical arm of the Department of Energy, currently headed by Wright — projected that "new U.S. solar electricity generating capacity will make up 63%, or nearly two-thirds, of all new electricity generating capacity in the United States."
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