It seems making a Lisp popular is an impossible task.

That said, I'm not sure if the data agrees with you. I think Clojure is more popular and widely used at this time. Not sure, but I think from what I remember of the few rankings, and just the fact I don't know an equivalent success story to NuBank for Elixir, I think maybe Clojure is at the moment more popular in practice.

But with the amazing learning material Elixir is putting out, maybe it won't last.