If you're not getting downvoted at least some of the time on HN you're doing something wrong. I've caught plenty of downvotes myself for arguing that Mars was never going to happen and is just a recruiting tactic for SpaceX to hire idealistic young engineers and pay them sub-market wages because the dream of Mars is part of their compensation.

All the hardware they've actually invested in, including Starship, is in fact foremost for launching satellites into Earth orbit. Starship in particular is optimized for this.

"Full Self Driving" was also a giant scam. Got heavily downvoted for that as well.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember stage 1 being maybe 2011. There were plenty of Musk critics back then, as there are now, but they seemed to have been completely wrong on pretty much everything. I remember people saying he was a charlatan whose technology would never work and even if it did it would never get mainstream market penetration. I feel like you would have smugly chuckled if anyone told you the following things that are true:

1.) Tesla cars will be ubiquitous on American roads

2.) The best selling model of car globally would be a Tesla

3.) Most cars would be made in the US, yet still be price competitive with foreign competition

4.) SpaceX rockets would be re-used multiple times per week

5.) SpaceX's launch business is highly profitable despite lowering prices to less than 10% of what they used to be

6.) SpaceX launches more mass to orbit than the rest of the world combined