Elon Musk offers $100 million prize for best carbon capture technology

The entrepreneur also asked his Twitter followers how to give away his fortune

Tesla founder Elon Musk has offered a $100 million prize for the “best” carbon capture technology.

The tech billionaire, who briefly overtook Amazon’s Jeff Bezos as the world’s richest man this month, tweeted the announcement and promised more details next week.

“Am donating $100M towards a prize for best carbon capture technology,” Mr Musk wrote.

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), untested at commercial scale, removes the carbon dioxide emitted by burning fossil fuels and transports it for permanent storage underground.  

In response, several of Mr Musk’s followers who shared the tweet suggested a solution — plant more trees. 

The prize will be connected to the Xprize Foundation, a non-profit that hosts public competitions to encourage technological development, Tech Crunch reported.

President Joe Biden has placed huge importance on his plan to tackle the climate crisis and says he wants to put the US on the road to be carbon neutral by 2050.

Mr Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, recently asked his 42.7 million Twitter followers how he should spend his fortune, now estimated at more than $201bn.

"Critical feedback is always super appreciated, as well as ways to donate money that really make a difference (way harder than it seems),” he tweeted.

In 2012 the South African-born billionaire signed the Giving Pledge initiative started by Bill Gates and promised to give away half of his fortune.

Mr Musk has publicly donated $257 million to the Musk Foundation and has said that much of his wealth will be used for space exploration and his ambition to colonise Mars.

“It’s going to take a lot of resources to build a city on Mars,” he told German publisher Axel Springer in December.

“I want to be able to contribute as much as possible,” Mr Musk said.