Time for Elon Musk to put his money where his mouthpiece is

Visionary, nerd, messiah, megalomaniac, saviour, sophist, genius, asshole – Elon Musk, now the world’s richest person, seems to be someone that people either adore or deeply deplore.

Personally, I can’t decide, and seeing as he’s consistently refused to be interviewed by me, it’s tough to make a close-up judgment.

What is not in doubt is that you can never ignore him, nor even the most truly bonkers things that he says.

Many moons ago, I chuckled at his absurd ambition to establish an electric-vehicle brand, from out of nowhere, that would challenge the automotive giants of the world and change the motoring industry forever. Now Tesla is theoretically worth more than all of those giants standing on each others’ shoulders.

I didn’t want to drive that first Model S, because I just couldn’t believe it could be any good, but then I did, and experienced that horrific feeling of realising I’d been wrong about something.

So I laughed a little less when Musk announced he would become a rocket scientist, send satellites into space, get them to land on platforms in the ocean, dig tunnels and send people through them at high speed in tubes and create roofs made entirely out of solar-panel tiles.

I even take him seriously when he says he’s going to go to Mars. Not because I believe he can or will, but because he’s proven us all wrong too many times in the past.

What I’m not sure I buy is his whole schtick about being not only the world’s greatest innovator but someone who cares deeply about the planet and wants to save us all from ourselves. This is the supposed idea behind Tesla, pushing us all to shift to electric vehicles to tackle the problem of climate change.

That’s a nice idea, but I’m pretty sure that making bucket loads of money – for himself and his share holders – is the bigger goal.

After Musk became the richest man in the world, on paper at least, this month – overtaking Amazon’s Jeff Bezos thanks to yet another meteoric shift in Tesla’s share price and thus his personal worth – old Elon was all Oh Shucks, “Oh well, back to work,” he wrote on Twitter.

And it’s this hokey, innocent part of his persona I just don’t buy.

He also explained to the Twitterverse that “about half my money is intended to help problems on Earth and half to help establish a self-sustaining city on Mars”, before adding that “critical feedback is always super appreciated, as well as ways to donate money that really make a difference (way harder than it seems)”.

Really? Bill Gates seems to be pretty good at it.

But here’s some critical feedback for him. If you really want Tesla to make a difference, how about pouring some of your billions into the market to make it easier for people to adopt your incredible technologies?

Could he not, with all of his wealth and power, make Tesla Powerwalls 50 percent cheaper? Or drop the price of the Model 3 to the point where it’s actually genuinely affordable?

Sure, we know the Tesla Model 2 is coming, but with that much money surely he can act sooner.

Yes, people will talk about the price of batteries and so-on but look at the pricing of the Model X in Australia and how it has moved over time.

He could do it, if he wanted to, and it really would “help problems on Earth”.

So what about it, Mr Musk, how about putting some of your vast sums of money where your enormous mouthpiece is?