1 week Ago By Matt Milano
Elon Musk is solidifying his well-earned reputation as the king of over-promising and under-delivering, extending his talent to his government post.Musk has a long history of making bold predictions and grandiose promises about what his tech companies will deliver, only to miss those deadlines by years while delivering products that fail to live up to the promise.One only has to look at the Cybertruck for proof.
Promised as a vehicle that would revolutionize the pickup truck market, it’s hard to see the Cybertruck as anything other than mediocre at best, an abject failure at worst. The truck has had multiple recalls for everything from faulty inverters to body panels that come flying off when driving down the highway.The Cybertruck is not alone, however.
Musk has repeatedly made promises regarding Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” capabilities, only for the company to fail to deliver. In fact, FSD fails to live up to the hype so much that some jurisdictions have prohibited Tesla from even using the term since it gives customers a false impression of what the vehicle and its software are capable of. Even the NHTSA has called the company out over claims about FSD’s capabilities.
Musk’s unrealistic promises extend to space, with the mercurial CEO claiming that SpaceX would send humans to Mars in the mid-2020s, a goal his company is nowhere near achieving.While Musk’s ambitious promises—others would say tenuous relationship with the truth—are bad enough in the context of business, it turns out Musk is an equal opportunity offender, bringing his same brand of over-promise and under-deliver to his role as head of DOGE.When Musk first was assigned to lead DOGE and root out waste and fraud within the federal government, the executive proudly proclaimed that DOGE would find $2 trillion from the budget.
That figure was quickly amended to $1 trillion.As it turns out, even $1 trillion was a gross overestimation, with Musk now admitting DOGE will not cut anywhere near as much from the budget as promised.“Thanks to your fantastic leadership, the amazing Cabinet, the very talented DOGE team, I’m excited to announce that we anticipate savings in FY26 from reduction of waste and fraud by $150 billion,” Musk said in a recent a Cabinet meeting, according to Business Insider.
As the outlet points out, as recently as last month, Musk was still proclaiming that DOGE would come very close to its $1 trillion goal before his 130 days as a special government employee are up, requiring him to leave the post.At this point, it’s hard to tell if Musk is drinking his own Kool-Aid and believes what he says; is taking a shotgun approach to predictions, hoping something sticks; or is knowingly lying when he makes his predictions and hoping no one notices.Either way, one thing is clear: Elon Musk is the undisputed king of over-promising and under-delivering, and customers and investors alike should take what he says with a heap of salt.
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