I can understand cynicism in general, but the Mars stuff — all of SpaceX really — is going so much faster than the never-delivered visions from governments and corporations worldwide for as long as I've been alive.
That (and that the cars shipped instead of being vapourware like all the other "green" initiatives from the incumbents) are why people were even inclined to bother listening to any of the other projects he's been involved with, even though the same ideas would normally be dismissed as if the proponent couldn't tell fact from fiction.