CMV: Elon Musk is not as smart as people think he is – or at least he is not as smart as he is pretending to be

First of all, let me start by saying that I am not nor have I ever been an anti Musk fan boy. As you will see though, I am having serious doubts about the reality of his overly marketed "intelligence".<br><br>I think this doubt might be something you share with me or perhaps you can prove me wrong. I would be more than happy to hear your opinion.<br><br>Elon Musk is widely regarded as one of the most intelligent people alive today. He is the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, and he has a long list of accomplishments in his career. Moreover, he is a leading figure in the public discourse about AI safety - he is the founder of Open AI and he is regularly invited to conferences that deal with AI – where he seems to be less knowledgeable compared to other scientists (i.e., his intervention at the Open AI developer conference where he argued that "it is not relevant whether we are in a simulation or not").<br><br>Having been interested in AI research for several years now, I have often heard Elon musk speaking about science and technology. Musk’s followers attribute Elon’s intelligence to the fact that he is a self-taught person who quickly grasps the bigger picture of any domain he enters. It might be true. But it is also true that Elon Musk has a long history of making overblown promises, moves (with Tesla), and wild theories that have no scientific basis (his theory about consciousness for instance, or his argument that the universe must be a simulation). He regularly projects overly optimistic targets that have not been met, for instance about sending humans to the moon in an attempt to save humanity from a third world war that he himself thinks inevitable.<br><br>Recently, he has made another claim, about the incredible potential of the recent AI breakthroughs - which might lead to a future in which there will be no work for people (and we will need a UBI). Or is it a lie? I would say it is a lie. Or at least an exaggeration. Elon Musk is an extremely skilled entrepreneur and self-marketer. His public speech is therefore often part of a marketing strategy to promote his products. So, when he says that he is less worried about Putin than he is about Chat GPT, could that perhaps be a sales pitch to get Tesla into the AI race? Or is he right, in which case he would also be lying to his employees by saying that AI is as important as nuclear weapons – because he is not taking any action against it.<br><br>He has also made the claim that it is a Ponzi scheme because the money is being printed and there is a chance that bitcoin could go to zero. Musk has also invested in cryptos, and bitcoin has not gone to zero (it went down but it did not go to zero - just like the price of Tesla’s stocks). My point is not that Elon Musk was wrong – because perhaps he was right and we have been lucky. My point is that he is not as much the visionary that he is supposed to be. More than that, he is not only making wrong predictions, he is also making them in areas in which he is supposed to have expertise.<br><br>Elon Musk has also claimed in 2013 that there will be a network of vacuum tubes crisscrossing the country. That there would be a Hyperloop that will transport passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco at the speed of an airplane (it has been 10 years since then - and the Hyperloop does not exist yet). These claims have been met with skepticism by other companies and experts, who argue that the cost of building such a network would be prohibitively expensive and that it would be difficult to achieve the necessary speeds.<br><br>In 2016, Musk announced plans to establish a human settlement on Mars, with the goal of making humanity a multi-planetary species. That has also not happened yet. In fact, the last thing he said was that humanity won’t make it to Mars before 2050.<br><br>Thus, my question is whether you think there is a real basis for his image of intelligence and visionary or whether he is just a good business man that has succeeded in creating an image of himself as being overly intelligent.<br><br>[edit] - Well, for everybody that commented that I am just jealous because Elon Musk is rich. Let me tell you that Elon Musk is a public figure who has taken a relevant role in public opinion. He is known for his stance on AI as well as his projects at NASA and Tesla. Let me tell you one more thing. I have graduated at 21, I had my first job at 22, and I was a senior engineer at 25. I own my own business and I am a researcher as well. So, I don't think you can call me jealous.