Maybe in elementary school people should get high marks for effort. I don't know.
But in the case of a company raising funding and claiming it wants to build a ton of subsidized infrastructure to service the public, it isn't the case that we should say, "This is better than some more vacuous application of the money." Because it's not at all clear that Hyperloop is actually a good plan to reintroduce high speed rail into America when so many problems keep coming to light about it.
Then you'll be glad to know that's what he's doing with Hyperloop - he has just released the idea as a paper, but he's not directly involved in its development, which is being done by independent companies.
Dozens of engineers from Tesla and SpaceX contributed in the Hyperloop whitepaper. Plus Elon considers himself an engineer, even though he has a degree in physics.
But in the case of a company raising funding and claiming it wants to build a ton of subsidized infrastructure to service the public, it isn't the case that we should say, "This is better than some more vacuous application of the money." Because it's not at all clear that Hyperloop is actually a good plan to reintroduce high speed rail into America when so many problems keep coming to light about it.