Open letter: while startups fight for innovation, Big Oil chooses fossil fuels again

The recent decision by TotalEnergies to halt its wind projects in the United States in exchange for nearly one billion dollars, on the condition that this money is reinvested in American oil and gas projects, leaves little room for interpretation.

When the company’s CEO, Patrick Pouyanné, defends the move by saying the capital can be used ‘more efficiently,’ we as an industry must ask a fundamental question: efficient for whom? For the planet? For future generations? Or simply for today’s shareholders?

The deal, offered by the U.S. administration led by Donald Trump, feels like a slap in the face to the thousands of companies and innovators working every day on sustainable solutions.

We see this clearly in the world of electric motorcycles. Across the globe, small teams, startups, and pioneers are developing new technologies: better batteries, more efficient powertrains, lighter chassis, and innovative manufacturing methods. They are searching for investment to fund their research and development, to move prototypes into production, and to build entirely new brands.

These are companies willing to take risks and who believe in progress. They believe mobility can be cleaner. Yet while they fight to secure every euro of investment, we see one of the world’s largest energy companies accept a billion-dollar deal without hesitation, one that effectively turns the clock back on the energy transition.

Guy Salens: “A billion dollars to stop wind energy and invest in oil and gas. If this is the ‘energy transition’, we have a serious problem.”

This inevitably raises questions. Where does this money actually come from? From American taxpayers? Or are we once again witnessing a political-economic arrangement designed to protect fossil fuels for decades to come, while the rest of the world tries to move forward?

What this decision truly exposes is something many have long suspected: when the moment of truth arrives, Big Oil still chooses Big Oil. The masks fall away. And perhaps that is the most valuable takeaway from this entire situation. Because it painfully clarifies that the real energy transition will not be led by companies that built their wealth on fossil fuels. That transition will come from innovators, from startups, from engineers, from entrepreneurs, and from consumers who choose a different path.

The future of mobility will not be built in the boardrooms of oil companies. It will be built in small workshops, in startup labs, in racing paddocks, and in R&D centers where engineers work day and night on the next generation of (light) electric vehicles.

Electric motorcycles are part of that future. And despite everything happening today, one thing remains clear: the energy transition is not a marketing strategy. It is a technological and societal evolution that ultimately cannot be stopped.

Guy Salens
Founder THE PACK – Electric Motorcycle News