Elon Musk Is a Huckster

JGALUN · Jul 16, 2026
The world's richest man has built his fortune on a foundation of hype, exaggerations, and lies. Whenever the world is starting to catch on to one of his broken promises, Musk tells a new story to pump his stock price and restore his image as a visionary - and each time, his stories grow more grandiose and farfetched.
Elon Musk|
We’re going all the way to Mars, I think. Best case, ten years, worst case 15-20 years.
The SpaceX Starship has only had 13 test flights and is nowhere near ready to reach Mars.
Elon Musk|
In ~2 years, summon should work anywhere connected by land & not blocked by borders, eg you're in LA and the car is in NY.
Ten years later, Tesla says summon works “within approximately 65 meters."
Elon Musk|
Just received verbal govt approval for The Boring Company to build an underground NY-Phil-Balt-DC Hyperloop. NY-DC in 29 mins.
Nine years years later, not a single hyperloop has been built.
Elon Musk|
[The Roadster 2] has all that functionality, with four seats. And available - expected this to be available - in 2020.
Nine years later, Musk stated that "We may be able to debut that in a month or so." It still has not been demoed.
Elon Musk|
November or December of this year, we should be able to go from a parking lot in California to a parking lot in New York, no controls touched at any point during the entire journey.
Despite repeating this promise many times since then – Tesla has not delivered full self-driving.
CNBC|
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says the first passenger on a private space flight around the moon will be a Japanese billionaire...The mission is scheduled to launch in 2023.
In 2024, the flight was canceled due to delays in the SpaceX Starship program.
Elon Musk|
New Boring Company merch coming soon. Lifesize LEGO-like interlocking bricks…Rated for California seismic loads, so super strong, but bored in the middle, like an aircraft wing spar, so not heavy…with a precise surface finish, so two people could build the outer walls of a small house in a day or so.
This "merch coming soon" was never sold.
Elon Musk|
[N]ext year for sure, we will have over a million robotaxis on the road. The fleet wakes up with an over-the-air update. That’s all it takes.
Tesla never turned existing cars into robotaxis.
Elon Musk|
We do see Tesla reaching 20M vehicles/year probably before 2030, but that requires consistently excellent execution.
Deliveries shrunk to 1.6M in 2025 - 92% short of forecast.
Elon Musk|
We have a shot of being in production for version one of Optimus hopefully next year.
Four years later, Musk's robot is still not in production.
Elon Musk|
…[I]t takes about a year to ramp up production…we're tentatively aiming for 50,000 units in 2024 for Tesla Semi in North America.
Volume production didn't even begin until 2026, and is unlikely to hit 50,000 units in 2027.
Elon Musk|
I'd say a quarter million [Cybertrucks sold] a year is a reasonable guess and it might be 500,000, I don't know.
Cox Automotive / Kelley Blue Book reported that Tesla sold only 20,000 Cybertrucks in 2025.
Elon Musk|
Logan Kilpatrick: How long until [Artificial General Intelligence]?

Elon Musk: Next year
In December 2025, Musk changed his prediction to 2026.
Elon Musk|
With our lower-cost vehicles, with the advent of autonomy, something like a 20% to 30% [sales] growth next year is my best guess.
In 2025, Tesla auto deliveries actually shrunk by 9%.
Elon Musk|
Howard Lutnick: But we set up DOGE - how much do you think we can rip out of this wasted $6.5 trillion Harris/Biden budget?

Elon Musk: Well I think we can do at least $2 trillion.
Musk missed his target by $2.5T, as government spending increased to $7.0T in fiscal year 2025.
Elon Musk|
I believe half of the population of the US will be covered by Tesla’s Robotaxi by the end of the year.
By the end of 2025, the Robotaxi operated fewer than 200 cars in just two cities.
Elon Musk|
SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years...SpaceX will also strive to build a Mars city and begin doing so in about 5 to 7 years.
Elon Musk|
You don’t seem to understand that SpaceX will be worth more than the rest of Earth if we accomplish our goals.
Elon Musk|
My prediction is that Optimus will be the biggest product of all time by far. Nothing will even be close. I think it'll be ten times bigger than the next biggest product ever made.
Thread by JGALUN. This is italics, this is bold, this is strikethrough, this is underline, asd asd and this is a URL: https://www.cnn.com One more time. 

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