Of Musk’s Wonky Predictions and Ellison’s Unfortunately Named Yacht

Variety, we are told, is the spice of life. Yes, it’s a hackneyed and shopworn maxim, but I need a plausible justification for taking you on these eclectic travels.

It’s been a while since we’ve paid a visit to Elon Musk’s neighborhood, and for good reason. The place is superficially attractive, but on closer inspection, we find that the architecture is brutalist and unprepossessing and the settlers are invariably hostile. It isn’t the friendliest place, and I suspect that’s entirely by design, reinforced by algorithmic fiat.

Musk issues a relentless succession of unwary predictions. He’s careless and cavalier in his predictions, probably under the assumption that what matters is not so much whether one makes accurate prognostications — nobody seems to be counting, much less keeping track of his batting average — but whether one obtains and retains celebrity at scale. Musk is the P.T. Barnum of the technology age. Like Barnum in an earlier age, Musk is a consummate showman. Like Barnum, Musk believes there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

People have short attention spans, he assumes; they’ll remember who was audacious, who was bold, who was provocative, but they won’t remember the specifics of what the ringmaster actually said or did.

Perhaps Musk is correct. After all, he comes out with some egregious whoppers and nobody ever seems to remind him of them. He’s like a darts player who doesn’t hit the board, but leaves members of the audience scrambling for cover. Admittedly, that analogy only goes so far. The imagined darts player would be relieved of his projectiles, or forced to take up a new hobby, but Musk continues to blast his errant predictions through the amplifiers and surround-sound systems of media both old and new.

Nobody in the media seems to tire of the routine, which is getting a little old by now. Every utterance from Musk, no matter how outlandish, is treated as hallowed scripture. Reporters and pundits seem to receive Musk’s word with an uncritical reverence that is unseemly.

Do you feel lucky, patient?

Recently, Musk boasted that, within three years, his Optimus robots will be better surgeons than their human counterparts. He was emphatic in his pronouncement: “Three years. And by the way, that’s three years at scale. There will probably be more Optimus robots that are great surgeons than there are all surgeons on Earth.”

It’s preposterous, of course. I’m not even going to dignity the assertion by picking it apart, though a cogent rebuttal is available in this article published by The Independent.

So, why would Elon Musk make such an outlandish prediction? Well, we’ve already mentioned that he knows that the media spotlight shines on those who already have a prominent profile and are willing to do what’s necessary to keep it. Nobody’s keeping score. A year from now — maybe a few weeks from now — people will have completely forgotten the specifics of what was said, but they’ll still remember, vaguely, that Elon Musk said something provocative — because he always does.

There’s another reason why Musk is inclined to science fiction dressed in the garb of science fact. That reason? Because it boosts his personal wealth and buys him time. If investors, whether of the retail or institutional variety, believe that Musk’s robots will be performing your colonoscopy in three years, they’ll be more inclined to hold or perhaps buy more of Tesla shares than they already owe. Musk is on a long-term quest to change the market’s perception of Tesla, which is now justifiably and reasonably viewed as a purveyor of electric vehicles. As far as Musk is concerned, that view will not suffice. Car companies, of EVs or otherwise, have much lower valuations than AI companies. Therefore, Musk’s objective is to persuade you to think of Tesla as an AI company, even if Tesla produces far more cars than AI.

A Billionaire’s Yacht by Any Other Name

I mentioned earlier in this post that Musk makes his wildly imaginative predictions at a rapid clip. It’s difficult to keep up, and what’s the point? It’s enough to realize that most of what he says is motivated by self-promotion and by a desire to boost Tesla’s stock price or the private valuations of his other companies.

At any rate, Fred Lambert at Elektrek evidently keeps track of Musk’s predictions. In a piece published at the tail end of 2025, Lambert enumerates “Elon Musk’s top five Tesla predictions for 2025 that didn’t happen.” Implicit in that declaration is the suggestion that Elon Musk made far more than five predictions in 2025, of which more than five landed short or wide of the intended target.

Alas, it doesn’t matter. As long as Tesla investors believe he’s some kind of genius and stay invested in his company, he will be the one who laughs loudest and laughs last.

And, yes, I see my small part in this theater of the absurd. Here I am talking about Musk, albeit critically, thereby serving to bathe him in a slightly larger wedge of limelight.

In all sincerity, I’ll try to do better in the remainder of 2026. Before then, however, let’s have a laugh.

In its quest for AI supremacy, Larry Ellison’s Oracle is incurring substantial long-term debt, spending like the proverbial drunken sailor. That said, unlike the crapulous sailor, Oracle’s dissolute ports of call are real estate, datacenters, and IT infrastructure. Given Larry Ellison’s noted proclivity for sailing and yachts, I think you will agree that nautical similes are apt. Nonetheless, Ellison might wish to give more thought to the naming of vessels.