"Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk has long garnered a reputation for being massively wrong in his promises and predictions about the future. In 2024, for instance, he said that AI would become "smarter than the smartest human" by 2025. He said his company's SpaceX Starship rocket, which is still exploding during test flights, will land on Mars this year. Like clockwork, he's predicted that self-driving cars will become a reality "next year" every year for well over a decade now."
"Users on online prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket are making big bucks off of Musk's astonishing track record for being wrong about the future. Case in point, Polymarket user David Bensoussan made a ten percent return after betting $10,000 that Musk wouldn't follow through on his threat of forming a new political party following his falling out with president Donald Trump."
""He does have a solid fan base, and so if I can help separate them from some of their money, I'm always happy to do that," he told NBC. "He has a habit of exaggerating timelines, and of saying he's going to do these amazing things and attaching more immediacy than what his intent may necessarily be." To Bensoussan, it's a matter of principle."
Elon Musk repeatedly makes highly optimistic public predictions that often fail to materialize, including AI becoming "smarter than the smartest human" by 2025, SpaceX Starship landing on Mars this year, and annual promises that self-driving cars will arrive "next year." Musk also promised unsupervised robotaxis by mid-2025, which remain unfulfilled. Online prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket allow users to place bets against those claims, producing profits for skeptics. Polymarket user David Bensoussan earned a ten percent return on a $10,000 wager and has gained over $36,000 total by betting against Musk’s predictions.
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