[khriss]

> Elon has control and optimizes for cool shit and going to Mars

This trope needs to die. SpaceX has no plans to go to Mars. Elon meanwhile regularly says forward looking stuff to attempt to justify the lofty valuations of his companies. Let's just say there is a ... mixed track record on these proclamations (Full self driving, Hyperloop anyone?)

[ralfd]

This trope has to die. SpaceX Starship design is optimized for Mars (instead of Blue Origin NG) and the gigantic Starship Factory and multiple launch pads under construction in Texas, Florida and Louisiana (plus potentially foreign countries) only make sense with Mars.

[ben_w]

While yes, I agree Mars appears to have been Musk's long term goals:

> the gigantic Starship Factory and multiple launch pads under construction in Texas, Florida and Louisiana (plus potentially foreign countries) only make sense with Mars.

There's a few other things that also make sense as use-cases for that infrastructure. Orbital manufacturing is already starting to get interesting. I don't want to bet either way on space-based data centres, the research I've seen from Google says that makes sense at $200/kg which Starship can only reach if SpaceX solves re-use and that's clearly difficult but I don't want to say impossible.

[jauntywundrkind]

Or the attempt to Kessler Syndrome and Neuromancer it up as fast as possible by trying to send up 1m satellites. https://spacenews.com/spacex-files-plans-for-million-satelli...

[OutOfHere]

I don't think these will be in Earth orbit. I think they will be in Sol's orbit.

[khriss]

And how exactly is SpaceX going to make any meaningful ROI on getting Mars orbit capability? It's not like people and govt's are raring to get there.

Scientific organizations like NASA would jump on a Mars Starship in a heartbeat, but how many missions will they want?

SpaceX is a corporation first and foremost, not a research org.

[Leonard_of_Q]

They're getting ROI on other ventures and uses those returns to finance their expansion towards Mars (and other planetary) orbit capacity. It may be rare to see a company looking further than the next quarterly report but it is nothing new for either SpaceX or some of Musk's other ventures.

[randallsquared]

Elon put out a musing akin to a blog post on Hyperloop.

[trunkiedozer]

FSD is awesome on hw4!

[kjksf]

Musk just tied his compensation to having 1 million people on Mars.

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat...

Do explain to me his evil plan of becoming rich by lying about going to Mars and yet agreeing to only get paid when he does go to Mars.

[pjc50]

We currently have 0 people on the moon.

The Antarctica population peaks at about 5,000, which is a paradise compared to Mars, with drinkable water and breathable air. It even has naturally occurring food! You can get there with a mere boat!

One million people on Mars within our lifetimes is a total fantasy. Like the Nigerian Prince emails, its main purpose is to identify marks.

[TiredOfLife]

Elon and his company was sued when he delivered on one of his previous compensation tied to moonshot never gonna happen things.

[aw1621107]

> Elon and his company was sued when he delivered

"When" is inaccurate. The original shareholder vote for Musk's 2018 compensation plan was on 2018-03-18. Tornetta was filed on 2018-06-05, well before the first tranche vested in 2020.

[pjc50]

What does that refer to?

[spikels]

The saga of Musk's 2018 Tesla pay package.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/19/musk-tesla-pay-delaware-supr...

[ben_w]

> Like the Nigerian Prince emails, its main purpose is to identify marks.

I may be overly-generous to the guy (bad habit, billionaires don't need or benefit from best-faith interpretations of the stuff they do, leads to sycophancy), but I think this may be more like grandiose delusion than a 419 scam.

The continual promises of full-self-driving, however, those definitely seem like a 419: up-front fees for promises never delivered on, repeated again with newer better hardware. What version is the hardware on now?

[funimpoded]

> yet agreeing to only get paid when he does go to Mars.

He already owns hundreds of billions of dollars worth of SpaceX. He "gets paid" whether or not these goals are achieved (a million people on mars definitely won't be achieved this century, as the place is fucking awful; one thousand is vanishingly unlikely, one million is flat-out not happening). In fact, hyping the company up ahead of IPO gets him paid, to the tune of thousands of working people's lifetime earnings.

[randerson]

> a million people on mars definitely won't be achieved this century, as the place is fucking awful

Mars could make for an interesting prison, though. Like the Australia of two centuries ago. If nobody volunteers to live there I wouldn't put it past Musk to meet his target that way.

[John23832]

People already lived in Australia before Britain shipped its prisoners there. It was habitable.

Nobody is spending trillions to build a prison on another planet.

[sgc]

Subterfuge so simple it is designed to target only the most foolish.

[blackjack_]

Hmm, why would a guy who is best known for spectacularly lying to boost his stock price do a spectacular lie? I do wonder… it’s almost like he wants to value the companies like they already achieved these impossible feats, so he can boost his net worth.

But it isn’t like he lied about full self driving for over a decade and then recently admitted none of his cars that people bought for that promise will be able to do that or anything…

[miltonlost]

*part of his compensation

The rest of his compensation isn't tied to that, but is tied to the bubble and hype that the lie of Mars living helps prop up.

[outside1234]

Sure, until he changes that plan to something else that is 5 years out in the future next year.

[righthand]

Does Elon need the money though or does Elon need the valuation? Do you think he actually needs that paycheck to actually happen?