#1: It's seed money with which Elon is raising mind-boggling amounts of investor money, using his celebrity as a lever. I consider it a hack, but it's an effect

#1: It's seed money with which Elon is raising mind-boggling amounts of investor money, using his celebrity as a lever. I consider it a hack, but it's an effective one. Also, being the public face of a decision isn't the same thing as making the decision. So far, I like the results being produced. #2: Got me there with colonizing Mars: that will be rich-only. However, proliferation of electric cars combined with breakthroughs in energy storage combined with local solar power can end up as a VERY big public dividend: effectively, it becomes possible to invest in technology that drastically reduces the self-sustaining costs and carbon footprint of the individual. Combine that with growing your own food and you're your own little generation ship: it's a drastic change from traditional labor/capital society, because you can set up your little 'life capsule' and then spend your days doing whatever, perhaps working on OpenAI :) And if it's good enough for Elon it's good enough for everybody else: imagine if not just megacorporations but ordinary citizens were subsidized to convert to this battery-pack-based, solar-powered energy consumption model. We could use plain human self-interest to drive widespread adoption of tech that would reduce the catastrophic swerve into a far more chaotic and destructive global climate. I'd call that a public dividend, worldwide.