$100M XPRIZE for carbon removal

In 2021, Musk and the Musk Foundation funded the $100 million XPRIZE Carbon Removal — the largest incentive prize ever offered. Its goal was to jump-start an entire industry: technologies that pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and oceans and lock it away durably, a capability scientists consider essential to limiting climate change.

The competition drew more than 1,300 teams from over 88 countries. In April 2025 the winners were announced, with a Houston-based enhanced-rock-weathering company, Mati Carbon, taking the $50 million grand prize, and other approaches — biochar, mineralization and more — sharing the rest.

Prizes like this are a powerful tool: a relatively modest sum can mobilize enormous global effort and accelerate a whole field. By putting up the largest purse in history for carbon removal, Musk directed serious money and talent at one of the hardest problems in climate — and a real industry now has momentum because of it.