Earlier this month, Mayor John Cruikshank of Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., sent a letter to Tesla CEO Elon Musk asking for help.
“Rancho Palos Verdes is a small community with a major infrastructure problem on its hands. It is working against one of the largest landslides in North America,” he said. “Reactivated in 1956, the ancient Greater Portuguese Bend Landslide Complex has been slowly moving for decades, damaging homes, utilities, and roads along the way. However, historic rainstorms in 2023 and 2024 accelerated its movement to an unprecedented rate of 9-12 inches per week.”
This week, Cruikshank met with Tesla Energy for the first time to see if it might be able to helps hundreds of residents impacted by the landslide.
“I’m very optimistic,” he said in an interview this week with KNX’s Nataly Tavidian. He said there were six people on the call and that he thinks it is clear that the company is taking the community’s plight seriously.
In his letter, the mayor asked Tesla for solar panels and Powerball batteries.
“There’s no specific agreements yet,” Cruikshank explained. “Essentially what they… how they could support us would be to develop more off-grid type power solutions.”