Well of course, since his first company built an electric car with fancy battery technology, and Tesla is building a huge battery factory, and he's on the board

Well of course, since his first company built an electric car with fancy battery technology, and Tesla is building a huge battery factory, and he's on the board of a solar company. Besides the cool factor, Tesla/Solar City would likely be the ones supplying the electricity or batteries, so profits for them. Even if he just supplied a white paper and encouraged others to do the rest (à la hyperloop) his companies would be better off (and one could argue society as well).