He strikes me more as a physicist arguing from first principles. Once you have drive-by-wire and a sensor array, self-driving is a pure software problem. You should be able to get 99% of the way there in simulation with a team of 4 really smart coders and an endless supply of Redbull and a year, tops. Also, the world's energy problems are trivial when you consider how cheap and efficient solar power is, and how little surface area is required. Clean water is just a matter of filtration at best or desalination at worst, which just devolves into an energy problem. And so on.

I do it myself sometimes, but at least I recognize how annoying and inaccurate it is. It is kind of nice to have someone arguing these positions and even better to act on them, and I for one wish that these analyses held (the world would be a better place if they did). But the real world just doesn't care about your first principles, and even simple ideas present obstacles you never imagined. Musk knows this, but willfully leaves it out during his pep talks, which is dishonest. But sometimes I get the uncomfortable feeling he's deceiving himself, which is quite chilling considering the amount of real power he's amassed (being able to launch large things into space is about as real as real power gets.)