[smaudet]

See this is precisely why I am bearish of Elon's companies, he's a savvy businessman, not a technologist, precisely why my opinion is that he is an idiot not a savant - PayPal is known for having been a flaming dumpster fire, it succeeded because of early market penetration (banks unable and unwilling to produce online payments systems in lieu of pushing credit cards). Ironically it is most useful now in traditional payment systems online, there are now reasonable more up to date payment systems available which largely supersede PayPal.

Again, Tesla is known for creating more hype fewer cars, expensive messes and underdelivering on promises - he has stimulated the market into considering alternative fuel sources, which is good but in a lot of ways showmanship not vision, more top down execution and spectacle than forethought or planning.

SpaceX is the most evident of these, Musk is busy taking tax dollars and building efficient rockets, which I guess is good but not about getting us to Mars.

So I think you are right to call out pandering for sales, it's what musk does best, not tech or vision.

It's like calling flappy bird visionary - popular yes but preceded by hundreds of sidescroller helicopter games with a single button controlling altitude. Difference being Flappy broke in on a verdant mobile market while the two color LCD version I played 25 years ago on a flipphone didn't even have Facebook to get popular on, while Flash versions of the same thing that had been out for decades suffered from anti Flash sentiment and a smaller mindshare.