"Thank you . . . and for my next trick, let me show you a robot which will eliminate poverty." (Elon Musk).

Photo above - Meet Elon Jetson. His boy Elroy. Their maid Optimus. And their full self-driving, flying cybertruck . . .

I love it! I absolutely love the idea of a robotic servant-slave-factory drone which will “eliminate poverty”. (see link below).

But everyone’s first question is going to be: “How much will that thing cost?” Is it going to be another incredible hype like the $35,000 bulletproof cybertruck, which was 4 years late and cost twice as much as promised? In any case, fantasies like this are worth $1 Trillion. Well played, Elon Musk!

The price of the Optimus robot is not disclosed. In fact, it doesn’t even exist yet. There’s a guy behind the curtain using a PS5 game controller making it do that stuff. But Optimus can definitely walk, bend over and pick something up, and then put it into a box. Elon says he will soon be churning 1 MILLION of these robots from his assembly line each year.

If the Optimus robot costs the same as the $35,000 (strikethrough, it's $75,000) cybertruck it will definitely get a look from a few single moms earning $350,000 a year. Possibly the robots will appear in Kardashian/influencer flat earth Instagram posts. How about bunch of rap videos too? Even more likely though, there’s going to be 999 of them lined up along the wall at some warehouse, recharging, while a few others load delivery trucks.

Let’s move past the disastrous over-priced, years late cybertruck which nobody wants now. This isn’t entirely Elon’s fault Yesterday Ford announced it was cancelling its electric F150 Lightning pickup. A ginormous battery powered pickup truck is the answer to a question nobody asked. But we probably SHOULD blame Musk for . . .

1 – promising that Tesla cars would end global warming.

2 – A $20,000 affordable “base model” Tesla which is always just around the corner.

3 – self driving Teslas are just around the corner too. The not-nearly full self driving software upgrade is available now, but it costs $15,000 in addition to original sticker price, if you want to turn it on. Spoiler alert - it's not legal to allow FSD to operate your vehicle.

4 – huge tunnels for cars and trains which will transport us at the speed of sound

5 – a flying car (which has been promised since at least 2014)

5 – a permanent Martian colony

Despite appearances, my column today is NOT a snark about Musk’s $1 trillion payday. His shareholders and board of directors can pay him anything they want. Those are the rules. But any charlatan with this record of BS promises shouldn’t be getting a dime of taxpayers' money. No government money for tax rebates on his cars, to build “starship” rockets, clog earth's orbit with thousands of slow-speed internet satellites, blast tunnels through bedrock in earthquake fault zones, or send promise Star Trek style rides to the gullible public.

Musk walks and quacks like a con man. The US government should stop giving him money, and make sure he pays every penny he owes in taxes from his $1 trillion windfall.

I’m just sayin’ . . .


Elon Musk says Optimus will 'eliminate poverty' in speech after his $1 trillion pay package was approved