content: There was an interview some years back with Elon and the guy behind the X Prize foundation. They got into space and the X Prize guy did go exactly that direction stating verbatim that space could lead to the first trillionaires. Elon's response was just short of outright rolling his eyes. Everything he's said from day 1 has been completely consistent with every action he's taken and taking. His goal is not money (though money is a very nice perk!) but simply doing as much as he can to improve humanity's chances of success going forward successfully. His idea with Mars is not particularly well understood. He doesn't want to have a few dozen scientists and elite astronauts digging up the dirt look for microscopic something-or-anothers. His goal is outright colonization. At least a million people in a completely self sustaining colony come city that can begin to develop in parallel alongside Earth. The big benefit there being that in the incredibly unlikely scenario of disaster on Earth, it's not really a problem for our species. It sounds hyperbolic but you have to keep in mind that Earth has gone through at least 5 major natural extinction level events. Today we already have theoretic technology to cause artificial extinction events and we're playing a major role in rapidly changing atmospheric conditions with no clear understanding on what the longterm consequences will be.  Like he has said, if he was after money - he would have started another social media site. Getting into the car industry, let alone the electric car industry where you're taking on not only the entire automative industry but the fossil fuels industry as well, is not a good recipe for success. Rockets - where you're engaged in some of the most complex science in any industry and taking on heavily government subsidized behemoths domestically and entire nations internationally - aren't much better! Even his actions once he has achieved success are not optimized for wealth. If he wanted to, he could have inflated his pieces and become part of the rocket monopoly. Instead he keeps driving prices lower and lower. This is how capitalism ought work but in reality, everybody's long since realized the optimal way to make profit is to keep your prices high and collude with other big players to minimize competitio  8  n.    2693