This is because his initial promises are so completely unbelievable that even getting in the same ballpark is an amazing accomplishment.
Barring a couple of obvious outliers (looking at you, FSD) he's typically within an order of magnitude of his completely insane predictions. Line that performance up against anyone else and the difference is stark.
SpaceX landing rockets? It’s really cool, but no one reasonable said you cannot land rockets. People questioned if it’s worth it. And this question still remains - they massively overestimated size of the market (they were planning to have launches weekly or more often). Instead they have rare commercial launches and they use it for internal project, that has also lots of questions about profitability. But it successfully kicks can down the road.
Electric car wasn’t questioned if it’s possible (expect for some freaks). And first mass market EV wasn’t even from them. Leaf (with its many flaws) until not long ago was best selling EV combined.
It was questioned if you can make in a way that profit, range and scale can meet. And Tesla still struggles at all of them.
Boring tunnels? Look at the tunnel in Las Vegas and tell me with a straight face that this is a future of transportation.
> It’s really cool, but no one reasonable said you cannot land rockets. People questioned if it’s worth it.
Not true.
> And this question still remains - they massively overestimated size of the market (they were planning to have launches weekly or more often).
No it doesn't. Even launching less often it would have been worth it.
And of course they did it the first time only a few years ago, the impact of dropping prices in launch are only really now starting to impact the industry.
They are launching every 1-2 weeks. If SpaceX didn't do Starlink there would be 4-5 other companies wanting create such constellations. Many other large constellations are in planning.
> But it successfully kicks can down the road.
It made something possible that wasn't possible before and that was the whole point.
> Boring tunnels? Look at the tunnel in Las Vegas and tell me with a straight face that this is a future of transportation.
Its amazing how people look at the first prototype of something and make judgment. The first roadster was a not really a great car. The Falcon 1 wasn't really that great a rocket.
If you said about the Falcon 1 'this is the future of rocketry'? No, Starship is where the whole development has lead to.
Boring company public infrastructure company that is 5 years old and born out of a basically a hobby project. And they already done quite a bit in that time and are winning competitive bids for other projects. Most companies that want to build transportation infrastructure spend decades in project planning.
Based on first principle you try to figure out the right solution. Then start building prototype and product and improve them significantly with each generation. What matters is speed of innovation and having the right conceptual idea.
No-one said it was physically impossible. Nobody thought it was a valid business plan, though. And these days I don't know of any credible concerns about SpaceX's profitability even if Starlink doesn't pan out.
> Electric car wasn’t questioned if it’s possible
No-one questioned if it was possible to make an EV of some description. What was questioned was whether it was practical to make an EV more desirable than an ICE. Tesla wouldn't be struggling with scaling issues if they weren't wildly successful. All of a sudden EVs winning drag races is handwaved as "but of course they won, they're EVs" where 2-3 years ago it would have been inconceivable.
> Boring tunnels?
TBH I'd forgotten about the whole tunneling thing. When I said 'insane predictions' I was talking about the impossible predictions re. FSD.
Who do you want to compare with? I don't know that many famous people that make completely unbelievable predictions that don't pan out, do you have any examples?
How about his promise to solve the Flint water crisis for any home above FDA levels? Promise to manufacture ventilators? Promise to return to the Thailand cave and demonstrate his submarine will work? Solar roof tiles delivered by slowly growing them to near the size of traditional panels, and not in anyway cheaper than a normal roof. Promise to build a rollercoaster with a loop made with cars on rails and frozen yogurt stands if employees don't unionize? Vegas Loop delivery vs what was sold initially? Promise to deliver proof of his claims against Unsworth?
He gets hype from initial goals, and rarely he’s being hold accountable for what’s actually delivered.
And quite a few products he delivered are really cool, not gonna deny it. But they are nowhere close to what they were hyped to be.