Only five days ago Elon Musk claimed that "we will have the basic functionality for level five autonomy complete this year." (yeah..!)
This is so ridiculous. Of course the basic functionality is easy. The whole point of having intelligent drivers is dealing with the edge cases.
TSLA proves this in spades, right now the stock is trading at more than double what Elon said was "overvalued" 10 weeks ago.
His rockets are [mostly] not exploding, his cars are selling to [mostly] good reviews, and neuralink seems to be doing something too.
Perhaps his cult of personality is deserved because although he (along with basically the entire industry) overpromised on self driving timelines, nonetheless he does seem to be one of the few people with the practical vision to take us into a techno future.
Consider that this guy went from a payment processing app to a bonafide private rocket company and is democratizing space flight (and satellite internet!) in what, about a decade?
People love to hate the guy, I believe because he has brash and harbors some unpopular (callous but rational) opinions. Regardless, the respect that he gets from his fanboys is arguably in deserved, if you're the type to find inspiration in great people.
Take your post for example: You soften the word "lied" to "overpromised" and then slowly build to more and more absurd lavishing praise. "Practical vision" is a bit of a stretch, but "democratizing" is just not reality. And "if you're the type to find inspiration in great people"--just about everyone finds inspiration in great people, so that's not even saying anything, it's just trying to indirectly say Elon Musk is a great person.
SpaceX watchers call it "Elon Time". When Gwynne Shotwell gives you a time estimate, you can take it seriously (subject to regular engineering uncertainty). When Elon Musk gives you a time estimate, laugh it off and say "that's adorable" and recognize that it's mostly intended to keep investors happy and to put pressure on his engineers.
I seriously cannot understand how it is he gets away with all of his gimmicks. I mean, insulting federal government agencies is not a crime, but so many of things he does seem to be awfully close to a crime these agencies are supposed to prosecute for.
P.S.
Hmm... How comes his brilliant TSLA price evaluation of 2 months ago isn't cited? If anything, this should have been captured for future generations.