That’s a nice way to put it. To put it bluntly, Musk is a “crap artist.” He makes promises he can’t keep. For example, everyone is probably now very familiar with his infamous 2011 interview wall street journal Where he said that he will send a man to Mars in 10 years. That was 14 years ago now and we’re not even close to sending someone to Mars. Years ago, Musk touted his proposed Hyperloop train system as a way to quickly move people between cities; That never came to fruition and was probably a ploy to stall other transit projects.
With 2025 almost over, Mashable decided to revisit its predictions for this year. Time is up. What promises did Musk make this year that were not fulfilled?
People on Mars by 2025
yes i just mentioned 2011 wall street journal Interview where Musk promised to send a man to Mars in 10 years. However, this is an entirely different promise from Musk regarding a man on Mars.
Back in 2016 – almost four years after their 10th anniversary WSJ Claim- Musk was seen during this time Recode’s Code 2016 ConferenceDuring a conversation with Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, Musk rejected his previous prediction of Mars arrival, which had sent humans to the Red Planet by 2021, According to Musk, SpaceX will begin sending rockets to Mars by 2018, with a new Mars mission being launched every 26 months thereafter, Then They will start sending people.
“If things go according to plan, we should probably be able to launch people in 2024 with arrival in 2025,” Musk said, referring to colonists arriving on the planet.
Nope – 2025 has come and gone and we’re still not on Mars.
NASA’s Mars rover captures lightning. Hear the ‘thunder’ yourself.
Tesla robotaxis will cover half of America’s population
Take a walk outside. How many Tesla robotaxis do you see? Nobody, you say? And you say you live in Austin, Texas – the only place in the US where robotaxis are currently operating?
This is strange. Because in July, during Tesla’s Q2 quarterly financial report, Musk told investors that Tesla’s robotaxis will serve half of the country.
“I believe that by the end of the year half of the US population will be covered by Tesla’s robotaxi,” Musk said.
Obviously, this is not true. And a new report from new York Times Last week it was found that even Austin locals have rarely come in contact with Tesla’s robotaxis.
as an EV outlet Electrek At the time of his claim, it was said that it was absurd for Musk to say this. Still, he made the claims with a straight face and investors believed him.
Fully Driverless Tesla Robotaxis
Speaking of Tesla’s robotaxis, if you get a robot, did you know you’ll actually get a human safety monitor riding inside it? You will do this despite what Musk had previously promised.
“Tesla will be in the woods with someone in Austin in June,” Musk said. Said Last year in the fourth quarter earnings call of 2024. “This is not some distant mythical situation, five, six months away.”
While Tesla’s robotaxi service did arrive in Austin during that time period, they “didn’t have any of them.” The level of autonomy that Tesla performs requires human safety monitor Riding inside a vehicle, according to Texas rules.
But, Musk promised several times over the past few months that those human safety monitors would be removed by the end of 2025.
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Musk said so in a Post X in September.
“The safety driver is there for the first few months for additional security,” Musk said. “There should be no safety drivers by the end of the year.”
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Musk reiterated that schedule during an earnings call in October.
“We’re expecting at least large parts of Austin to have no safety drivers by the end of this year, so within a few months,” Musk said Said,
And then Musk repeated that claim during an xAI hackathon in early December.
“At this point the unsupervised problem has been largely resolved,” said Musk. “So there will be a Tesla robotaxis operating in Austin with no one in it. There won’t even be anyone in the passenger seat in about three weeks.”
Last week, Musk Posted That he took a ride in a completely driverless Tesla robotaxi in Austin. A Tesla employee shared Video Even from inside a driverless ride. However, these appear to be test runs as regular customers still report that human safety monitors are still part of the ride, at least until late December.
XAI will achieve AGI
Artificial general intelligence or AGI is basically the holy grail for the current AI-obsessed tech industry. AGI can be defined as the type of artificial intelligence that was promised in sci-fi movies. This is not a big language model that can sound human like existing AI, but AI that can actually perform intellectual tasks like a human. It can think, learn, reason and take action.
In 2024, in a reply on his social media platform
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“How long until AGI?” Posted by Logan Kilpatrick of Google AI Studio.
“Next year,” Musk replied,
“Big if true,” Kilpatrick responded.
Well, surprise. This was not true.
According to a new report from business insiderMusk has since changed the goalposts and says that XAI could achieve AGI in the next few years and potentially even next year! We’ll report back in late 2026 until Musk’s version of Skynet arrives.
A flying car/demo of the long-awaited Tesla Roadster
This is a combination of two possible promises, as it is still unclear what Musk was actually referring to on Joe Rogan’s podcast in November.
during an appearance on joe rogan experienceMusk claimed that Tesla will release a demo of the long-awaited Roadster, a vehicle the company announced and began taking pre-orders for in 2017. The Tesla Roadster has still not been released even after eight years.
“We’re getting closer to demonstrating the prototype,” Musk told Rogan during the show. “I think it will be…One thing I can guarantee is that this product demo will be unforgettable.”
When pressed for a timeline from Rogan, Musk responded “hopefully before the end of the year.”
However, Musk went AheadRecalling how his “friend” Peter Thiel used to say that there should be flying cars in the future, yet we don’t have flying cars. Rogan questioned Musk further but Musk just hinted that the thief should be able to buy a flying car and that we would all have to wait to see the demo.
So was Musk saying the Roadster could fly? Was Musk even serious about a flying car? Who knows. But, 2025 is over now and we don’t have any demos of a flying car or a roadster, so Musk didn’t give anything either.
DOGE will cut $2 trillion in ‘waste, fraud and abuse’
Following the re-election of Donald Trump, Musk was given the chance to lead a new quasi-government agency called DOGE, in which he promised to cut $2 trillion of what he described as “waste, fraud, and abuse.”
DOGE quickly became quite controversial due to Musk and his ilk. very young team Struggled to find any real “waste, fraud and abuse” in the federal government. There were many claims of DOGE fraud dismissed And there was a tendency to post in the group wrong data which put the group in a more favorable light.
Musk’s promise of $2 trillion in cuts soon became a promise of $1 trillion in cuts. That $1 trillion promise? Soon it was further reduced to hundreds of billions.
Now, new analysis new York Times Also right wing CATO InstituteFound that DOGE didn’t actually save anything. Many of the government contacts that DOGE claimed to have canceled are still active. Actually, government spending really went up Under the watch of DOGE.
According to the CATO Institute, “The federal government spent $7.6 trillion in the first 11 months of calendar year 2025, nearly $248 billion more through November of 2025 than the same month in 2024.” Analysis Said.
While Musk failed to deliver on his DOGE promises, he actually cut USAID and foreign aid programs Allegedly Due to which hundreds of thousands of deaths occurred. happy new year?
This article reflects the opinion of the author.
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