I think he's a psycho (could be a good thing, wait) who cares about two things:

a) Tesla making enough money to make Space X work

b) Being able to establish a colony on Mars, using Space X

I think he's super honest about the Mars stuff. I also think he's being super deceptive about the Tesla stuff. Is that ethical or not? I don't know. From his larger point of view (risk of earth annihilation vs a bunch of rich americans dying in Tesla failures)... who knows.