His efforts turned out to be a bit of a damp squib but that's because the rescue effort was launched earlier than expected due to coming heavy rains.

There was talk about having the kids wait in there until as late as November, or maybe a long process of drilling an escape hole.

If the rescue had begun a week or two later, perhaps Musk's gadget would have been used. As it is, the divers already had a plan that, by the time Musk arrived, appeared to be working well.

But yeah, he tweets a lot about his projects, and no doubt has some thought toward self-promotion.

He appears to follow through, so I can't be too cynical about his apparent opportunism.