I also find it unconvincing that the purpose of the stunt is to receive deposits.
This being a prestige project to show off Tesla's advantage in experimental technology, or a personal pet project, would seem a much more likely explanation. Do we really need to bend everything into a malicious scam?
Hey remember when all of the Tesla factories were being retooled to make robots, and the hilarious robot demo where some remote controlled junk was pitched as next gen? Also SpaceX would be to Mars by 2021, and would have landed a crew there in 2023. Totes!
Musk is Elizabeth Holmes who lucked into buying a growing business. Like, he 100% does exactly what Theranos did, and which she is sitting in jail for, trying to boost the stock on bullshit and lies.
"prestige project to show off Tesla's advantage"
Advantage? The entire engineering world is going "why?", for a wide range of reasons.
Not unlike the CyberJunk nonsense where he needed to boast that it can stop bullets and double as a boat (https://nationalpost.com/news/world/cybertruck-texas-wade-mo...) and is made out of impractical materials. That massive, colossal flop didn't show any "advantage", it showed that a toddler was running the show, and when people just want cars he's off desperately trying to regain his Iron man allure, now that he's just a vile, garbage human being.
Another narrative that also fits the facts is that demand for their cars is so bad that they had to idle the X and S lines at that factory and they used Optimus as an excuse.
If demand was booming they'd set up a new facility to manufacture Optimus rather than dismantling a car factory
You should be asking Elon that.
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 10 times, shame on me
Wild people are still falling for Musk's fake products. I guess what they say is true, there is a sucker born every minute despite the evidence of the last twenty years. This will never ship.
Falcon 9 - 2010 - the cheapest, most successful, most reliable, most available rocket in history
Cargo Dragon - 2012 - first commercial resupply to ISS
Model S - 2012 - BEV that started the EV transition
Supercharger network - 2012 - first US wide charging network and still most reliable
Falcon 9 Booster Reuse - 2017
Falcon Heavy - 2018 - Super heavy partially reusable rocket
Model 3 - 2018 - best selling EV next 3 years
Crew Dragon - 2020 - only US NASA approved crew craft to LEO
Starlink - 2020 - only successful orbital ISP
NACS - 2022 - charging plug standard opened and then adopted by majority of US BEV manufacturers
Model Y - 2023 - First BEV to be world’s best selling car
Starship - 2024 - first catch of an orbital class booster without landing gear
Musk is highly accomplished and has also over-hyped his plans many times.
He’s delivered things years late that were also years ahead of others.
The actual work of SpaceX and Tesla are done by his employees, but the company wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for him.
He’s expressed some laudable goals around green tech and space exploration and also done things designed to enrich himself immensely.
Tesla’s done some cool things and also had problems.
SpaceX is awesome and Musk is also a terrible human being.
Dichotomies are uncomfortable but they’re everywhere.