Electric car executive rules out heading DOE

Tesla Motors CEO and co-founder Elon Musk took his name out of the running Tuesday for the upcoming vacancy atop the Energy Department (DOE).

"It's not a role to which I would aspire,” the electric car executive said at the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) Innovation Summit near Washington, D.C.

Musk made the comment during a talk with Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who announced his resignation earlier this month.

Musk is more of a fantasy pick floated by clean-energy advocates than legitimate candidate to head the agency.

An entrepreneur who made his first fortune with Internet-payment service PayPal, Musk has been supportive of DOE’s clean-energy grant and loan programs.

Tesla has benefited from one of those programs. It received a $465 million federal loan in 2009 through a vehicle manufacturing program created in a 2007 energy law under former President George W. Bush.

Musk said the DOE loan to Tesla "should be viewed as a success." He pledged to repay the remainder of the loan in five years or less, though Tesla still has 10 years to do so.

Regardless of Musk’s interest, President Obama appears to be leaning toward tapping physicist Ernest Moniz as the next DOE chief.

Moniz currently directs the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative. He is a former undersecretary of Energy for the Clinton administration, and is still active in Washington energy circles.

CORRECTION: This story was corrected at 6:04 p.m. to reflect that the vehicle manufacturing loan program was created under a 2007 energy law. A previous version of the story contained incorrect information.