Both things are true. Musk's companies have done quite a few remarkable things people didn't think were possible, and Musk overpromises to an absurd degree and has left a trail of abandoned projects in his wake.

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modeless 4 hours ago | parent [-]

People often cite Hyperloop but he explicitly said he wasn't going to build it himself. They often cite FSD but it is far from abandoned and is driving my car today. What other projects are you thinking of which are actually abandoned? The Tesla solar roof is the biggest one I can think of, I think it's fair to count it as abandoned. I guess the project to make building bricks out of Boring tunnel dirt didn't pan out either, seems pretty minor though.

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zzrrt 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/888053175155949572 "Just received verbal govt approval for The Boring Company to build an underground NY-Phil-Balt-DC Hyperloop. NY-DC in 29 mins." (July 2017, years after saying he wouldn't build it himself.) Technically it's not a commitment to build, but any other leader in the market would be considered to have failed if they made such a statement and then quietly abandoned it.

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modeless 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Yeah under that post he also says "If you want this to happen fast, please let your local & federal elected representatives know" and "Still a lot of work needed to receive formal approval, but am optimistic that will occur rapidly". Not just "technically" not a commitment to build. Clearly dependent on other factors.

Go ahead and count it as "abandoned" if you want. He did talk about building a Hyperloop and is not currently pursuing it directly. But I think failing to win required government approval/funding is a bit different than capriciously giving up on an idea, and The Boring Company itself is far from abandoned. Very different from the solar roof which is unambiguously a commercial failure.

	▲	wat10000 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That would be reasonable if not for the BS “verbal govt approval” bit.

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YetAnotherNick 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Boring company maybe? It's not abandoned, but they likely gave up the idea of an underground system of roads under a city, and just focus on single project individually like traditional construction company.

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modeless 4 hours ago | parent [-]

It's far from abandoned. They're actively building TBMs at their factory and tunneling in Vegas and it's pretty different from any other transportation project I'm aware of.

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wat10000 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

DC to Baltimore tunnel, LA tunnel network, Chicago airport tunnel. New Roadster, possibly Tesla Semi. Battery swap stations. “Alien dreadnaught” factory with no humans on the production line. Dragon 2 propulsive landing. Self-driving ought to qualify at least partially, because although the project continues and is doing quite well, a huge number of cars were sold with hardware that was promised to be capable of it and turned out not to be.

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modeless 3 hours ago | parent [-]

TBC is still pursuing government permits and contracts to build tunnels. Not having succeeded in every case is not the same as abandoning the project.

The new roadster is delayed, not abandoned. It's known to be in active development and is very likely to be demoed this year. Wrong timeline but not abandoned.

The Tesla semi is on the road daily and the factory to build large quantities is almost complete. They're hosting a "factory inauguration" event next month. Certainly not abandoned.

Tesla has already committed to replacing hardware as necessary on cars that purchased FSD in the past so that they can run unsupervised as promised, after Tesla has unsupervised FSD working. Certainly the timeline was wrong but again, clearly not abandoned.

	▲	zzrrt 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The DC tunnel was billed as a hyperloop, so it's not good faith to both excuse him for never intending to build one and also claim it takes time and will eventually succeed.
	▲	wat10000 an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Did TBC ever pursue government permits and contracts for the DC tunnel? The nonsense "verbal govt approval" they mentioned makes me skeptical of the whole thing. New Roadster is over six years late and has basically gone silent at this point. Maybe it'll still come, just extremely late, but I'm very skeptical. Semi might be real, we'll see. If cars that were built with AP2/2.5/3 get upgraded to unsupervised FSD, I'll eat my hat. They don't even know what hardware will be needed yet and some of those cars are now a decade old.

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zzrrt 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Wait, is hyperloop not a Musk failure because he never said he would build it, or is it not a failure because his company is still building it? You've said both.

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modeless 3 hours ago | parent [-]

What they're building in Vegas is not a hyperloop.

	▲	zzrrt 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I see my logical flaw and agree (to the specific arguments about tunnels made in this subthread), though I made an adjacent post showing Musk later expressed intent to build a hyperloop in DC, so you can't also say he never claimed to try.