The car is a bit Dadaist. Some people think it's a waste to send a car up into space --sure, from some perspectives it might be. He could have sent compacted garbage instead.

But he's an entrepreneur and also a showman (among other things) and this excites people (in multiple dimensions).

The Twitter stuff though, well, I think we've learned that there is this insidious aspect where largely average people people (people who otherwise have contributed around average to humanity, let's say) will try to one up each other into virtue-signaling who can think more virtuously.

All of that [outrage] Tweeting itself probably generates more waste (CPU cycles, network traffic, phone battery consumption, etc) than will be "wasted" by sending this roadster into space. But at least they'll get to feel smug.