Solar Roof: https://electrek.co/2026/05/14/tesla-solar-roof-promise-vs-r...
Tesla Full Self Driving: https://electrek.co/2026/05/18/musk-unsupervised-fsd-widespr...
Hyperloop / Boring Company mass-transit vision
Mars settlement timelines
X as an everything app
I consider him a visionary in a sense of innovation but he is insecure and immoral one.
Needles to say his investors made money on his over promises.
Does he also deliver on some mind-boggling timelines? Well Tesla went from delivering its first cars in 2008 to having the best selling car in the world in 2023, and SpaceX went from not having successfully launched a rocket to delivering about 80% of the world's space payload in roughly the same timeframe. So I'd say that's clearly a 'yes', too.
I do. It’s not his singular focus. But he continues to personally invest himself in pushing the boundaries of human spacefaring capability. That goal seems more meaningful to him that it does to e.g. Bezos, who seems to have a rocket company to look cool.
At one point he was probably sincere but he's been consumed by culture war slop.
You can’t believe musk without simultaneously believing he’s a liar. It’s in HIS fucking book.
I said I believe he wants to go to Mars and will put in the work to make that happen. I didn't say everything he's said is true. Musk absolutely lies. But his actions speak pretty consistently to Mars being a real goal.
But I see a lot of that announcement, and the others someone else pointed to as his "aspirational, but ultimately never going to happen" goals - whether he believes the claims are achievable, or not, he says these things to energise people to working/paying for him to try
It costs him little to nothing to say, and other people's time, effort, and capital to try (and succeed/fail)
Tesla is falling to pieces now, and SpaceX is getting loaded up with completely unrelated projects (xAI) in order to try and make it look saleable (I guess) - it's very difficult to see the Mars announcement as anything but hype.
That all depends on how much he values his credibility, I think..
But to be fair, for someone as good at self promotion as he is, I can believe that the value of the hype could be greater than the cost in credibility.
Did I miss something?
I would not invest.
If Optimus fails to impress, and gain traction, I’d seriously expect Tesla to end up a subsidiary of SpaceX within the next ten years as Elon tries to protect up his net worth.
I do think 'self driving' is still their 'moat' when it comes to EVs. I use it every day, and nothing else comes close. But other than that, building EVs is becoming a cut-throat slim-margin business. I don't think that's where Elon, or Tesla employees, want to spend their energy.
The “west” came up with Tesla and Rivian, and their cars are on the road. And the US tariffed chinese EVs. What else can be done to combat China’s lower priced labor and possibly more lax environmental regulations?
Oh yeah, the announcement is hype. But there is actual work underneath it making real progress in science and engineering that moves us closer to Mars. Some of that, moreover, is work that has limited appeal outside a Martian context.
He has a legion of people propping up his stock by manipulating them into believing he is a wizard.
They want mega constellations for always-on drone guidance and for "golden dome" which would allow for the laser-based shoot-down of long range exo-atmospheric missiles. You need reusable spacecraft to make that tenable. This is not about Mars, don't buy the marketing. At best for civilians, this is about making broadband widely available such that America can dominate internet connectivity going forward and increase spying further. As an example, examine a map of Starlink connectivity, you will notice that Russia and Gaza are excluded.
The Artemis missions will eventually enable the placement of communications equipment on the moon, making anti-satellite weapons less effective at disrupting critical communications.
Fortress America will be invincible forever, so so they desire. The macroeconomics are not working out for them though even though the technological edge is still working for them on that level.
This is a conspiracy theory folks who just Googled In-Q-Tel have been stringing together since Covid. It's not true.
> examine a map of Starlink connectivity, you will notice that Russia and Gaza are excluded
Russia wasn't excluded until recently. That was a problem!
> The Artemis missions will eventually enable the placement of communications equipment on the moon, making anti-satellite weapons less effective at disrupting critical communications
Wat.
??? It's documented that Ukraine is using Starlink extensively.
Golden dome: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/golden-dome-for-america-trump-m...
> Wat.
Communications are an exception to the lunar treaty that governs the militarization of space.
Don't forget that the original space program was designed to peacefully demonstrate a high degree of control over ICBM class rockets. They're so good and accurate, we can put a human on top of one. The government does not spend huge amounts of money on things like "art" or "science" without a motivating factor. This is the capitalist empire, not socialism.
I guess polluting space with shitty satellites and causing environmental disasters with failed and questionably-permitted rocket launches is, technically, pushing on boundaries of human spacefaring capability.
My cat is both cute and fluffy as well as a menace.
Musk has been successful is pure engineering efforts led by engineers he hired achieving the next big-but-not-too-big step.
You ignore his thoughts on everything else.
He's fundamentally a very smart socially inept largely sociopathic emotionally immature obsessively driven boy who read a lot of Heinlein as a kid. Everything about him indicates he sees himself as a saviour of humanity and the only person who has their priorities right and everybody should appreciate and adore him and it's so darn frustrating when they don't, oh wait this other party will adore me, now they don't anymore either oh HUMbug.
Do I believe any of his promises? No absolutely not. But I do think Mars is his massive obsession and that he fervently (If completely Implausibly) believes it'll work and help humanity.