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Elon Musk's promises, checked

91 dated, checkable claims made in public since 2006 about what Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, X, Neuralink, The Boring Company or the man himself would do, and by when — with what happened. The rules: a claim needs a date it was made and, where one was given, a date it was due; a verdict names the observable; and the ones he kept are in here too, because a ledger with only misses is a grudge, not a record.

Hand-kept, in version control · evidence attached daily by the desk · materiality weight 1–3 feeds the Musk Bubble Index

Delivered8
Delivered late7
Partial11
Broken33
Abandoned11
False when said5
Not yet due16
Not as described89%88% by materiality
Always next yearyear said → year due
20062008201020122014201620182020202220242026200620082010201220142016201820202022202420262031+due the year it was saidtodayA Tesla will be able to drive itself for 90% of miles within a year. — said 2014-10-02, due 2015-12: BrokenFull autonomy is about two years away. — said 2015-12-21, due 2017-12: BrokenA Tesla will drive from Los Angeles to New York with no one touching the controls by the end of next year. — said 2016-10-19, due 2017-12-31: BrokenFull self-driving will be feature complete this year. Next year you will be able to fall asleep in the car and wake up at your destination. — said 2019-02-19, due 2020-12: BrokenNext year for sure we will have over a million robotaxis on the road. — said 2019-04-22, due 2020-12-31: BrokenI remain confident that we will have the basic functionality for level five autonomy complete this year. — said 2020-07-09, due 2020-12-31: BrokenI would be shocked if we do not achieve full self-driving safer than a human this year. — said 2022-01-26, due 2022-12-31: BrokenRobotaxi unveil on August 8. Unsupervised FSD is coming this year. — said 2024-04-23, due 2024-12-31: BrokenUnsupervised FSD as a paid service in Austin in June, then many cities in the US by the end of this year, and customers' own cars driving unsupervised in many regions by year end. — said 2025-01-29, due 2025-12-31: PartialAutonomous ride-hailing will reach probably half the population of the US by the end of the year. — said 2025-07-23, due 2025-12-31: BrokenA Tesla will be able to drive 1,000 km on a single charge by 2017, and 1,200 km by 2020. — said 2015-09-24, due 2017-12: BrokenThe Model 3 will start at $35,000 before incentives. — said 2016-03-31, due 2017-07: Partial5,000 Model 3s a week by the end of 2017, and 10,000 a week at some point in 2018. — said 2017-08-02, due 2017-12-31: Delivered lateThe Tesla Semi enters production in 2019. — said 2017-11-16, due 2019-12: Delivered lateThe new Roadster will be in production in 2020: 0–60 in 1.9 seconds, 620 miles of range, $200,000, with a $50,000 deposit today. — said 2017-11-16, due 2020-12: BrokenThe Cybertruck starts at $39,900, with production in late 2021. — said 2019-11-21, due 2021-12: BrokenA $25,000 Tesla, fully autonomous, in about three years. — said 2020-09-22, due 2023-09: AbandonedModel S Plaid+: 520-plus miles of range, deliveries late 2021. — said 2021-01-27, due 2021-12: AbandonedTesla will make 100 GWh of its own 4680 cells a year by 2022, and 3 TWh by 2030, cutting cost per kWh by 56%. — said 2020-09-22, due 2022-12: BrokenTesla will be delivering 20 million vehicles a year by 2030. — said 2021-08-09, due 2030-12: AbandonedTesla expects to achieve 50% average annual growth in vehicle deliveries over a multi-year horizon. — said 2021-01-27, due 2025-12: BrokenThe Cybercab, with no steering wheel or pedals, enters production before 2027 — probably 2026 — and costs under $30,000. — said 2024-10-10, due 2026-12-31: DeliveredA Tesla Bot prototype next year, built to do dangerous, repetitive and boring tasks. — said 2021-08-19, due 2022-12: DeliveredSeveral thousand Optimus robots working in Tesla factories in 2025, then 50,000 to 100,000 in 2026, and ten times that in 2027. — said 2025-01-29, due 2025-12-31: BrokenOptimus will be in limited production doing useful work in Tesla factories in 2025 and sold to outside customers in 2026. — said 2024-07-23, due 2026-12-31: Not yet dueDojo, Tesla's own training supercomputer, will be operational next year and will be the fastest AI training computer in the world. — said 2021-08-19, due 2022-12: AbandonedSolar Roof installations will reach 1,000 a week within the next several months. — said 2019-10-25, due 2020-06: BrokenFalcon Heavy will fly in 2013. — said 2011-04-05, due 2013-12: Delivered lateI am confident we will put a man on Mars in 10 years, maybe 12 to 15 in the worst case. — said 2011-04-22, due 2026-04: BrokenCrew Dragon will carry NASA astronauts by 2017. — said 2014-09-16, due 2017-12: Delivered lateTwo cargo ships to Mars in 2022 and four ships, two of them crewed, in 2024. — said 2017-09-29, due 2022-12: BrokenStarship will fly passengers between any two cities on Earth in under an hour — New York to Shanghai in 39 minutes, London in 29 — within a decade. — said 2017-09-29, due 2028: Not yet dueStarship reaches orbit in less than six months, and flies people within a year. — said 2019-09-28, due 2020-03: Delivered lateA thousand Starships, three launches a day in each Mars window, a million people on Mars by 2050. — said 2020-01-16, due 2050: Not yet dueStarlink speed will double to about 300 Mb/s and latency will drop to about 20 ms later this year. — said 2021-02-22, due 2021-12: BrokenThe first Starships to Mars will launch in two years, when the next transfer window opens. Crewed flights in four years if those landings go well. — said 2024-09-07, due 2026-12: BrokenStarship will land NASA astronauts on the Moon in 2024. — said 2021-04-16, due 2024-12: Delivered lateAutonomous high-density urban buses and the Tesla Network, where your car earns you money while you are at work. Both to be unveiled next year. — said 2016-07-20, due 2017-12: BrokenThe Chicago Express Loop: downtown to O'Hare in 12 minutes, at no cost to taxpayers, built in three years. — said 2018-06-14, due 2021: AbandonedThe Las Vegas Convention Center Loop will move 4,400 passengers an hour in autonomous electric vehicles. — said 2019-05-22, due 2021-01: PartialI see a path to Twitter exceeding a billion monthly users in 12 to 18 months. — said 2022-11-27, due 2024-05: BrokenA general amnesty for suspended accounts will begin next week. — said 2022-11-24, due 2022-12: DeliveredBy the end of next year, X will handle your entire financial life. You will not need a bank account. — said 2023-10-26, due 2024-12-31: BrokenNeuralink will have a product to treat serious brain injuries within about four years. — said 2017-04-20, due 2021-04: BrokenNeuralink hopes to have its first human patient before the end of next year. — said 2019-07-16, due 2020-12: Delivered lateA SpaceX-built mini-submarine will help rescue the boys trapped in the Tham Luang cave. — said 2018-07-08, due 2018-07: BrokenTesla and SpaceX will make ventilators if there is a shortage. — said 2020-03-19, due 2020-04: PartialWe can cut at least $2 trillion from the federal budget. — said 2024-10-27, due 2025-12: BrokenGiga Shanghai will be producing Model 3s by the end of this year. — said 2019-01-07, due 2019-12: DeliveredThe Model Y will be the best-selling car of any kind in the world in 2022 or 2023. — said 2021-01-27, due 2023-12: DeliveredStarlink will offer service to customers after about six launches, in 2020. — said 2019-05-15, due 2020-12: DeliveredAbout 500 robotaxis in Austin by the end of the year. — said 2025-10-22, due 2025-12-31: BrokenOptimus Generation 3 will be unveiled in the first quarter of 2026. — said 2026-01-28, due 2026-03-31: BrokenRobotaxis will be very, very widespread in the US by the end of this year. — said 2026-01-22, due 2026-12-31: Not yet dueGrok 5 will be out by the end of the year, with a real chance of being AGI. — said 2025-09-18, due 2025-12-31: BrokenCustomers' own cars will be able to join the robotaxi network, driving unsupervised, around the second quarter of next year. — said 2026-10-21, due 2027-06-30: Not yet dueCybercab launches in Dallas next month, more cities before the end of the year, and Cybercabs delivered to customers by the end of 2026. — said 2026-10-21, due 2026-12-31: Not yet dueOptimus will reach outside customers in about a year, and the Fremont line will reach 20,000 a week in at least a year, maybe a little longer. — said 2026-10-21, due 2027-12-31: Not yet dueTesla is aiming for about five million vehicles a year by around 2030. — said 2026-10-21, due 2030-12: Not yet dueSpaceX will put one gigawatt a year of AI compute into orbit by the end of 2027, then ten, then a hundred, eventually a terawatt a year. Starship will be lifting about a million tonnes a year within three years. — said 2026-06-10, due 2027-12-31: Not yet dueSpaceX annual recurring revenue will be somewhere between $500 billion and a trillion dollars by the end of 2027. — said 2026-10-20, due 2027-12-31: Not yet dueAbout 100,000 Starlink V3 satellites and a hundred times today's bandwidth within three years. — said 2026-10-20, due 2029-10: Not yet dueThe Terafab chip plant will be in volume production in the third quarter of 2028, with a first test chip by mid-2027. — said 2026-10-20, due 2028-09-30: Not yet dueNext year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America — the first of many. — said 2026-10-19, due 2027-12-31: Not yet due
  • Broken
  • False when said
  • Abandoned
  • Delivered late
  • Partial
  • Not yet due
  • Delivered
  • · dot size = materiality to the valuation
By companyresolved claims
CompanyResolvedNot as described
Tesla4742 · 89%
SpaceX1210 · 83%
Boring Co.66 · 100%
X32 · 67%
xAI22 · 100%
Neuralink22 · 100%
Musk22 · 100%
DOGE11 · 100%

Status definitions: Delivered on time as described · Late arrived after the date · Partial shipped well short of the claim · Broken the date passed · Abandoned dropped by the company · False untrue when said · Pending not yet due.

The ledger91 claims · filter, sort, search
91 of 91
SaidDueStatusThe claimWhat happenedWt
Oct 2026Jun 2027PENDING
“Customers' own cars will be able to join the robotaxi network, driving unsupervised, around the second quarter of next year.”
Tesla · Tesla Q3 2026 earnings call (Ashok Elluswamy)
The same capability was promised for the end of 2025 in January 2025. It is now tied to a future software version and limited to the robotaxi service areas.
●●●
Oct 2026Dec 2026PENDING
“Cybercab launches in Dallas next month, more cities before the end of the year, and Cybercabs delivered to customers by the end of 2026.”
Tesla · Tesla Q3 2026 earnings call
A car with no steering wheel can be sold in the US only under a federal exemption capped at 2,500 units a year, and NHTSA opened an audit of the Cybercab's self-certification in September 2026.
●●●
Oct 2026Dec 2027PENDING
“Optimus will reach outside customers in about a year, and the Fremont line will reach 20,000 a week in at least a year, maybe a little longer.”
Tesla · Tesla Q3 2026 earnings call
The 2025 version of this claim was several thousand robots in 2025 and 50,000 to 100,000 in 2026. No unit count has ever been disclosed.
●●●
Oct 2026Dec 2030PENDING
“Tesla is aiming for about five million vehicles a year by around 2030.”
Tesla · Tesla Q3 2026 earnings call
Replaces the 20 million target set in 2020. From 1.64 million in 2025, five million by 2030 needs about 25% a year — roughly the growth Tesla managed from 2021 to 2023 and has not managed since.
●●●
Oct 2026Dec 2027PENDING
“SpaceX annual recurring revenue will be somewhere between $500 billion and a trillion dollars by the end of 2027.”
SpaceX · SpaceX Q3 2026 earnings call
Trailing revenue at the time was about $32 billion. The low end of the claim is a fifteen-fold increase in fourteen months — faster than any company of that size has ever grown.
●●●
Oct 2026Sept 2028PENDING
“The Terafab chip plant will be in volume production in the third quarter of 2028, with a first test chip by mid-2027.”
Tesla · SpaceX and Tesla Q3 2026 earnings calls
Musk himself called the schedule 'very aggressive'. A leading-edge fab typically takes four to five years from ground-breaking to volume output; none has been broken.
●●●
Oct 2026Dec 2027PENDING
“Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America — the first of many.”
SpaceX · Twitter
About 73 million children; roughly $10 billion of stock at the time. No mechanism, custodian or legal structure has been described.
●●●
Jun 2026Dec 2027PENDING
“SpaceX will put one gigawatt a year of AI compute into orbit by the end of 2027, then ten, then a hundred, eventually a terawatt a year. Starship will be lifting about a million tonnes a year within three years.”
SpaceX · Interview on X
Starship first reached orbit in September 2026 and has delivered 26 satellites. A million tonnes a year is roughly a thousand times the mass humanity has ever launched in a year.
●●●
Jan 2026Mar 2026BROKEN
“Optimus Generation 3 will be unveiled in the first quarter of 2026.”
Tesla · Tesla Q4 2025 shareholder letter
Moved to 'mid-2026', then to a video promised 'in a month or two' on the October 2026 call. No Generation 3 robot has been shown as of late October 2026.
●●●
Jan 2026Dec 2026PENDING
“Robotaxis will be very, very widespread in the US by the end of this year.”
Tesla · World Economic Forum, Davos
Six metros in Texas and Florida without a safety monitor and the Bay Area with a driver as of October 2026; no new city since July. Tesla has named Las Vegas, Phoenix, Jacksonville and San Antonio as next, without dates.
●●●
Oct 2025Dec 2025BROKEN
“About 500 robotaxis in Austin by the end of the year.”
Tesla · Tesla Q3 2025 earnings call
Revised to 'about 60' at the November 2025 shareholder meeting, three weeks later. Texas had authorised 314 driverless Teslas state-wide by September 2026.
●●●
Sept 2025Dec 2025BROKEN
“Grok 5 will be out by the end of the year, with a real chance of being AGI.”
xAI · Twitter
Missed the end of 2025, then the first quarter of 2026, then June 30, 2026. xAI shipped Grok 4.7 in September 2026; Grok 5 remained 'in training' in October.
●●●
Jul 2025Dec 2025BROKEN
“Autonomous ride-hailing will reach probably half the population of the US by the end of the year.”
Tesla · Tesla Q2 2025 earnings call
At the end of 2025 the service was available in parts of Austin and, with safety drivers, parts of the Bay Area — a few million people at most against a target of about 170 million. By October 2026 it was six Texas and Florida metros without a monitor, and still the Bay Area with a driver.
●●●
Jun 2025—PARTIAL
“We will use Grok to rewrite the entire corpus of human knowledge, adding missing information and deleting errors.”
xAI · Twitter
Grokipedia launched on October 27, 2025 with about 885,000 articles, a large share of them adapted from Wikipedia, the thing it was meant to replace.
●●●
Jan 2025Dec 2025PARTIAL
“Unsupervised FSD as a paid service in Austin in June, then many cities in the US by the end of this year, and customers' own cars driving unsupervised in many regions by year end.”
Tesla · Tesla Q4 2024 earnings call
Austin launched on June 22, 2025 with a safety monitor in every car. The Bay Area service that followed used a human driver. No customer car anywhere was unsupervised at the end of 2025.
●●●
Jan 2025Dec 2025BROKEN
“Several thousand Optimus robots working in Tesla factories in 2025, then 50,000 to 100,000 in 2026, and ten times that in 2027.”
Tesla · Tesla Q4 2024 earnings call
Tesla disclosed no Optimus production figure for 2025. Reporting put the number built in the hundreds, the head of the programme left in June 2025, and in January 2026 Musk said no Optimus was yet doing useful work in a factory. 'Early production' at Fremont was announced in October 2026, again without a count.
●●●
Oct 2024Dec 2025BROKEN
“We can cut at least $2 trillion from the federal budget.”
DOGE · Madison Square Garden rally
Revised to $1 trillion in January 2025 and to $150 billion in April 2025. DOGE's own 'wall of receipts' claimed $175 billion when Musk left on May 28, 2025 and $215 billion at its end. A GAO review in August 2026 found a fifth of the listed contract terminations had never happened and 96% of the claimed grant savings could not be verified. Federal spending rose year on year.
●●●
Oct 2024Dec 2026DONE
“The Cybercab, with no steering wheel or pedals, enters production before 2027 — probably 2026 — and costs under $30,000.”
Tesla · We, Robot event
Production began at Giga Texas in the second quarter of 2026 and paid Cybercab rides started in Austin on September 3, 2026 — on the date given. The sub-$30,000 price is untested, because no Cybercab has been sold to anyone, and NHTSA opened an audit of the car's self-certification in September 2026.
●●●
Sept 2024Dec 2026BROKEN
“The first Starships to Mars will launch in two years, when the next transfer window opens. Crewed flights in four years if those landings go well.”
SpaceX · Twitter
In February 2026 SpaceX dropped the 2026 Mars attempt in favour of an uncrewed lunar landing demonstration targeted for 2027. The next Mars window is late 2028. Starship reached orbit for the first time on September 28, 2026, on its fourteenth flight.
●●●
Jul 2024Dec 2026PENDING
“Optimus will be in limited production doing useful work in Tesla factories in 2025 and sold to outside customers in 2026.”
Tesla · Tesla Q2 2024 earnings call
No external customer, price list or delivery date exists. On the October 21, 2026 earnings call outside sales were put 'about a year' away — which is to say, not in 2026.
●●●
Apr 2024Dec 2024BROKEN
“Robotaxi unveil on August 8. Unsupervised FSD is coming this year.”
Tesla · Tesla Q1 2024 earnings call and Twitter
The unveil slipped to October 10, 2024 and showed a prototype on a closed film lot. No unsupervised FSD shipped in 2024.
●●●
Oct 2023Dec 2024BROKEN
“By the end of next year, X will handle your entire financial life. You will not need a bank account.”
X · All-hands meeting, reported by The Verge
X Money reached a limited beta in 2025. No one's financial life is on it.
●●●
Nov 2022May 2024BROKEN
“I see a path to Twitter exceeding a billion monthly users in 12 to 18 months.”
X · Twitter
The SpaceX prospectus of May 2026 disclosed about 550 million monthly users for X and Grok combined as of March 2026 — the first audited figure since Twitter went private, and roughly where Twitter was in 2022.
●●●
Nov 2022Dec 2022DONE
“A general amnesty for suspended accounts will begin next week.”
X · Twitter poll
Reinstatements of suspended accounts began in early December 2022, as stated.
●●●
Oct 2022—PENDING
“Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.”
X · Twitter
Four years on, X is a social network with a chatbot attached. Payments, banking, shopping and ride-hailing, the things that make WeChat an everything app, are absent or in limited test.
●●●
Jan 2022Dec 2022BROKEN
“I would be shocked if we do not achieve full self-driving safer than a human this year.”
Tesla · Tesla Q4 2021 earnings call
FSD Beta went to all North American buyers in November 2022, still supervised, and was the subject of a 363,000-vehicle NHTSA recall three months later.
●●●
Jan 2022—PENDING
“Optimus has the potential to be more significant than the vehicle business over time.”
Tesla · Tesla Q4 2021 earnings call
Optimus has recorded no external revenue. The claim is the basis for most of the sell-side's 'bull case' valuations of Tesla.
●●●
Dec 2021—DROPPED
“SpaceX is starting a program to take CO2 out of the atmosphere and turn it into rocket fuel.”
SpaceX · Twitter
No facility, paper, hire or product has been announced in the five years since. Starship burns methane bought from the gas industry.
●●●
Aug 2021Dec 2022DONE
“A Tesla Bot prototype next year, built to do dangerous, repetitive and boring tasks.”
Tesla · Tesla AI Day 2021 (a dancer in a bodysuit stood in for the robot)
A walking prototype was shown at AI Day in September 2022. It walked slowly and waved. On time, as described.
●●●
Aug 2021Dec 2022DROPPED
“Dojo, Tesla's own training supercomputer, will be operational next year and will be the fastest AI training computer in the world.”
Tesla · Tesla AI Day 2021; Musk said in 2023 Tesla would spend over $1bn on it
Tesla shut the Dojo programme down in August 2025, Musk calling it 'an evolutionary dead end', and the team's leaders left to found a start-up. Training moved to Nvidia hardware. Reports in January 2026 of a revived 'Dojo 3' for space-based compute have not been followed by a product.
●●●
Aug 2021Dec 2030DROPPED
“Tesla will be delivering 20 million vehicles a year by 2030.”
Tesla · Tesla 2020 Impact Report; repeated on earnings calls through 2023
The target vanished from the 2023 Impact Report published in May 2024. Deliveries fell in 2024 for the first time and fell again in 2025, to 1.64 million. On the October 21, 2026 earnings call the 2030 aim became 'about 5 million' — a quarter of the original.
●●●
May 2021—BROKEN
“Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin and will resume them once mining transitions to more sustainable energy — around 50% clean.”
Tesla · Twitter
Industry estimates passed 50% sustainable in 2022–23. Tesla never resumed Bitcoin payments, and sold three quarters of its holding in Q2 2022.
●●●
Apr 2021Dec 2024LATE
“Starship will land NASA astronauts on the Moon in 2024.”
SpaceX · NASA Human Landing System contract award
NASA moved Artemis III to 2026, then 2027, with the lander's readiness the pacing item. SpaceX now targets an uncrewed lunar landing demonstration around March 2027; no lunar Starship has flown.
●●●
Jan 2021Dec 2021DROPPED
“Model S Plaid+: 520-plus miles of range, deliveries late 2021.”
Tesla · Tesla Q4 2020 earnings call and online configurator
Cancelled in June 2021 with the explanation that there was 'no need' for it, five months after taking orders.
●●●
Jan 2021Dec 2025BROKEN
“Tesla expects to achieve 50% average annual growth in vehicle deliveries over a multi-year horizon.”
Tesla · Tesla Q4 2020 shareholder letter
Growth was 87% in 2021, 40% in 2022, 38% in 2023, −1% in 2024 and about −9% in 2025. The 50% line was dropped from the letter in 2024.
●●●
Jan 2021Dec 2023DONE
“The Model Y will be the best-selling car of any kind in the world in 2022 or 2023.”
Tesla · Tesla Q4 2020 earnings call
The Model Y was the world's best-selling vehicle in 2023 by most tallies, at about 1.2 million units.
●●●
Sept 2020Sept 2023DROPPED
“A $25,000 Tesla, fully autonomous, in about three years.”
Tesla · Tesla Battery Day
Reuters reported the car cancelled in April 2024. Musk called the report a lie, then in October 2024 said a $25,000 car with a steering wheel would be 'pointless'. The cheapest Tesla in 2026 is a stripped Model 3 at about $37,000.
●●●
Sept 2020Dec 2022BROKEN
“Tesla will make 100 GWh of its own 4680 cells a year by 2022, and 3 TWh by 2030, cutting cost per kWh by 56%.”
Tesla · Tesla Battery Day
In-house 4680 output was in the single-digit GWh in 2023 and the cells went into the Cybertruck only. The cost-per-kWh targets were never confirmed, and Tesla continued buying most of its cells from Panasonic, LG and CATL.
●●●
Jul 2020Dec 2020BROKEN
“I remain confident that we will have the basic functionality for level five autonomy complete this year.”
Tesla · World Artificial Intelligence Conference, Shanghai (video)
Nothing resembling Level 5 existed at the end of 2020, or at the end of any year since.
●●●
May 2020—PARTIAL
“I am selling almost all physical possessions. Will own no house.”
Musk · Twitter
He did sell seven California houses. By 2024 he was reported to be assembling a compound of properties in Austin through corporate entities.
●●●
Mar 2020Apr 2020PARTIAL
“Tesla and SpaceX will make ventilators if there is a shortage.”
Tesla · Twitter
Tesla bought and shipped about 1,000 machines from China, many of them BiPAP devices rather than invasive ventilators, and showed a prototype built from Model 3 parts that never went into production.
●●●
Jan 2020—PENDING
“Anyone can go to Mars, with loans available for those who do not have the money, and there will be a lot of jobs on Mars.”
SpaceX · Twitter
There is no ticket, price, loan programme or job.
●●●
Jan 20202050PENDING
“A thousand Starships, three launches a day in each Mars window, a million people on Mars by 2050.”
SpaceX · Twitter
Starship's current flight rate is a handful of test flights a year. The claim implies a launch cadence roughly a thousand times higher than anything achieved.
●●●
Nov 2019Dec 2021BROKEN
“The Cybertruck starts at $39,900, with production in late 2021.”
Tesla · Cybertruck unveiling
First deliveries came in November 2023 at $60,990 for the cheapest trim and $79,990 for the one most buyers got. The $39,900 version was never built. Sales ran at a fraction of the 250,000 a year Musk had guided.
●●●
Oct 2019Jun 2020BROKEN
“Solar Roof installations will reach 1,000 a week within the next several months.”
Tesla · Solar Roof V3 launch call
Independent permit counts put installations in the low tens a week at the 2021 peak. Tesla stopped reporting solar deployments separately, and the product is marginal by 2026.
●●●
Oct 2019—PARTIAL
“Tesla is adding Powerpacks and solar to California Superchargers so they keep running through PG&E blackouts.”
Tesla · Twitter, during the October 2019 public-safety power shutoffs
A few dozen of the state's many hundred Supercharger sites gained battery backup over the following years. Most did not.
●●●
Sept 2019Mar 2020LATE
“Starship reaches orbit in less than six months, and flies people within a year.”
SpaceX · Starship Mk1 presentation, Boca Chica
The first orbital launch attempt was April 20, 2023, three years late, and the vehicle was destroyed four minutes in. Starship first actually reached orbit on September 28, 2026 — seven years after 'six months'. No one has flown on it.
●●●
May 2019Jan 2021PARTIAL
“The Las Vegas Convention Center Loop will move 4,400 passengers an hour in autonomous electric vehicles.”
Boring Co. · Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority contract
Opened in June 2021: 1.7 miles, Model 3s and Ys driven by human employees, one car at a time per tunnel. The capacity figure was demonstrated once in a test; everyday throughput is a fraction of it. The wider Vegas Loop has since grown to about fourteen stations and four million rides — still human-driven.
●●●
Apr 2019Dec 2020BROKEN
“Next year for sure we will have over a million robotaxis on the road.”
Tesla · Tesla Autonomy Day
Zero in 2020. The first Tesla robotaxi service began in Austin in June 2025 with roughly a dozen Model Ys and a Tesla employee in the passenger seat. Six years late, the fleet is measured in hundreds, not millions.
●●●
Apr 2019—FALSE
“Buying a car today is an investment in the future. A Tesla with full self-driving is an appreciating asset.”
Tesla · Tesla Autonomy Day; repeated on Twitter, 2019–2021
Used Tesla prices fell faster than the used-car market from 2022 onward. The FSD package was cut from $15,000 to $8,000 in April 2024, and the owners of HW3 cars were told in 2025 that it would never work unsupervised on their hardware.
●●●
Mar 2019—BROKEN
“Teslas will automatically detect a breakdown and summon a tow truck.”
Tesla · Twitter
No Tesla software release has ever included it. Roadside assistance is still a phone call or an app button.
●●●
Feb 2019Dec 2020BROKEN
“Full self-driving will be feature complete this year. Next year you will be able to fall asleep in the car and wake up at your destination.”
Tesla · ARK Invest podcast
FSD Beta reached a few thousand hand-picked drivers in late 2020, supervised, with a wheel-nag. Sleeping in the car is still a crime in every Tesla sold to the public.
●●●
Jan 2019—PARTIAL
“The new Roadster will have a SpaceX option package with cold-gas thrusters and might be able to hover, briefly fly.”
Tesla · Twitter; repeated on the Joe Rogan Experience and at the 2025 'most epic demo ever' tease
At the October 15, 2026 unveiling an unmanned prototype used cold-gas thrusters to jump a row of cars at SpaceX's McGregor site. A stunt was delivered; a car customers can buy is promised for 2028.
●●●
Jan 2019Dec 2019DONE
“Giga Shanghai will be producing Model 3s by the end of this year.”
Tesla · Groundbreaking ceremony
First customer deliveries from the plant were on December 30, 2019, under a year from a field. The most impressive execution in the company's history.
●●●
Oct 2018—DONE
“Teslaquila is coming soon.”
Tesla · Twitter, after an April Fools' joke; trademark filed October 2018
Tesla Tequila went on sale in November 2020 at $250 a bottle and sold out in hours. A promise kept, for what it is worth.
●●●
Aug 2018—DROPPED
“The Dugout Loop: electric skates carrying fans to Dodger Stadium in under four minutes, for about a dollar.”
Boring Co. · Boring Company announcement
Environmental review began in 2018 and never concluded. The project page was taken down.
●●●
Aug 2018—FALSE
“Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.”
Tesla · Twitter
No funding was secured. The SEC charged Musk with securities fraud; he settled for $20 million and gave up the chairmanship. A jury in 2023 found him not liable to shareholders.
●●●
Jul 2018—PARTIAL
“Please consider this a commitment that I will fund fixing the water in any house in Flint that has water contamination above FDA levels.”
Musk · Twitter
The Musk Foundation gave about $480,000 for water filtration in Flint's schools in October 2018. No houses were fixed under the commitment.
●●●
Jul 2018Jul 2018BROKEN
“A SpaceX-built mini-submarine will help rescue the boys trapped in the Tham Luang cave.”
SpaceX · Twitter
The rescue was completed by divers before the tube arrived; the rescue lead said it would not have fit the passages. Musk then called him a 'pedo guy', and was sued for it.
●●●
Jun 20182021DROPPED
“The Chicago Express Loop: downtown to O'Hare in 12 minutes, at no cost to taxpayers, built in three years.”
Boring Co. · City of Chicago announcement with Mayor Emanuel
No contract was signed. The project disappeared after the mayor left office in 2019.
●●●
Jun 2018—BROKEN
“After this 9% reduction, Tesla does not plan further layoffs.”
Tesla · Email to staff, published by Musk
7% of staff were cut in January 2019, about 10% of salaried staff in 2022, and more than 10% of the whole company — some 14,000 people — in April 2024.
●●●
May 2018—DROPPED
“Car elevators in private garages will connect homes directly to the tunnel network.”
Boring Co. · Boring Company presentation, Leo Baeck Temple, Los Angeles
No residential connection has ever been built. The company's only operating tunnels are under the Las Vegas Strip.
●●●
May 2018—FALSE
“Brake pads on a Tesla literally never need to be replaced for the lifetime of the car.”
Tesla · Twitter
Regenerative braking does reduce pad wear. Tesla's own service schedule calls for brake inspection and replacement as wear dictates, and recommends cleaning and lubricating callipers annually in cold climates.
●●●
Mar 2018—DROPPED
“The Boring Company will make bricks from the excavated dirt and sell them for 10 cents each, or free for affordable housing.”
Boring Co. · Twitter
A small batch was shown in 2018. No bricks were sold and the 'Brick Store' never opened.
●●●
Nov 2017Dec 2019LATE
“The Tesla Semi enters production in 2019.”
Tesla · Semi and Roadster unveiling
The first handful went to PepsiCo in December 2022 from a pilot line. Volume production was promised for 2025, then 2026; Tesla announced the high-volume Nevada line running on September 24, 2026, seven years late, and has not disclosed how many trucks it makes.
●●●
Nov 2017Dec 2020BROKEN
“The new Roadster will be in production in 2020: 0–60 in 1.9 seconds, 620 miles of range, $200,000, with a $50,000 deposit today.”
Tesla · Semi and Roadster unveiling
Not one has been delivered. The date moved to 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024; the 'most epic demo ever' promised for the end of 2025 slipped to April, then October 2026. The car was finally shown on October 15, 2026, with production now promised for 2028. Deposits taken in 2017 are still held.
●●●
Sept 2017Dec 2022BROKEN
“Two cargo ships to Mars in 2022 and four ships, two of them crewed, in 2024.”
SpaceX · International Astronautical Congress, Adelaide
Nothing flew to Mars in 2022 or 2024. Starship first reached orbit in September 2026 and has not demonstrated orbital refuelling, the prerequisite for any Mars flight.
●●●
Sept 20172028PENDING
“Starship will fly passengers between any two cities on Earth in under an hour — New York to Shanghai in 39 minutes, London in 29 — within a decade.”
SpaceX · International Astronautical Congress, Adelaide; Gwynne Shotwell put the date 'within ten years' at TED 2018
No regulatory filing, launch site or vehicle configuration for passenger point-to-point flight exists.
●●●
Aug 2017Dec 2017LATE
“5,000 Model 3s a week by the end of 2017, and 10,000 a week at some point in 2018.”
Tesla · Tesla Q2 2017 shareholder letter
Tesla built 2,685 Model 3s in the whole of Q4 2017. It hit a 5,000-a-week burst in the last days of June 2018, in a tent, and sustained 10,000 a week only from Shanghai in 2021.
●●●
Oct 2016—FALSE
“All Tesla cars being produced now have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than a human driver.”
Tesla · Tesla blog post and press call
HW2 and HW2.5 cars needed a computer swap to HW3 from 2019. In January 2025 Musk conceded that HW3 cars will not reach unsupervised self-driving either and will need another upgrade, with no date or price given.
●●●
Oct 2016Dec 2017BROKEN
“A Tesla will drive from Los Angeles to New York with no one touching the controls by the end of next year.”
Tesla · Autopilot 2.0 hardware announcement
No such drive happened in 2017. In February 2018 it was 'three months, maybe six'. It has still not happened as of 2026.
●●●
Jul 2016—PARTIAL
“The Gigafactory will be powered entirely by renewable energy, with the world's largest rooftop solar array, 70 MW, and no natural gas connection.”
Tesla · Gigafactory 1 opening
A few megawatts of rooftop solar were installed by 2022. The plant draws most of its power from the grid.
●●●
Jul 2016Dec 2017BROKEN
“Autonomous high-density urban buses and the Tesla Network, where your car earns you money while you are at work. Both to be unveiled next year.”
Tesla · Master Plan, Part Deux
No bus was unveiled. The Tesla Network for owners' cars does not exist in 2026; the Austin robotaxi pilot uses company-owned vehicles.
●●●
Jun 2016—FALSE
“Model S floats well enough to turn it into a boat for short periods of time. Thrust via wheel rotation. The Cybertruck will be waterproof enough to serve briefly as a boat.”
Tesla · Twitter, 2016; repeated for the Cybertruck in September 2022
Every Tesla manual warns that driving through deep water voids coverage. The Cybertruck gained a 'Wade Mode' in 2024 for water up to about 80 cm, which is fording, not floating.
●●●
Mar 2016Jul 2017PARTIAL
“The Model 3 will start at $35,000 before incentives.”
Tesla · Model 3 unveiling
Deliveries began in July 2017 at $49,000 and up. The $35,000 car appeared in February 2019, was removed from the online configurator within six weeks, and was quietly discontinued.
●●●
Dec 2015Dec 2017BROKEN
“Full autonomy is about two years away.”
Tesla · Fortune interview
By the end of 2017 Tesla had Autopilot 2 hardware and a software stack that did less than the Mobileye-based one it replaced. Eleven years later, every Tesla sold to a customer is still Level 2, supervised.
●●●
Sept 2015Dec 2017BROKEN
“A Tesla will be able to drive 1,000 km on a single charge by 2017, and 1,200 km by 2020.”
Tesla · Danish Broadcasting Corporation interview
The longest-range Tesla ever rated was the 2021 Model S Long Range at 652 km EPA. No Tesla has reached 700 km, let alone 1,000.
●●●
Dec 2014—DROPPED
“We are actually working on a charger that automatically moves out from the wall and connects like a solid metal snake. For realz.”
Tesla · Twitter
A prototype video was posted in August 2015. Nothing was ever sold, and the project has not been mentioned by the company since.
●●●
Oct 2014Dec 2015BROKEN
“A Tesla will be able to drive itself for 90% of miles within a year.”
Tesla · Autopilot hardware launch; repeated to CNN, December 2015
Autopilot shipped in October 2015 as lane-keeping and adaptive cruise on highways, supervised. Nothing close to 90% of driving.
●●●
Sept 2014Dec 2017LATE
“Crew Dragon will carry NASA astronauts by 2017.”
SpaceX · NASA Commercial Crew contract award
First crewed flight May 30, 2020, two and a half years late, and still earlier than Boeing's competing capsule, which has yet to complete an operational mission.
●●●
Aug 2013—DROPPED
“Hyperloop: Los Angeles to San Francisco in 35 minutes, buildable for about $6 billion.”
Boring Co. · Hyperloop Alpha white paper
Musk never built one. Hyperloop One, the best-funded attempt, shut down in December 2023 having carried two people at 172 km/h. The Boring Company's Hawthorne test tunnel was filled in.
●●●
Sept 2012—BROKEN
“Supercharging will be free forever, and the stations will be solar-powered, generating more energy than the cars consume.”
Tesla · Supercharger network launch event
Free unlimited Supercharging ended for new orders in January 2017. A small minority of the network's 70,000-plus stalls sit under a solar canopy, and the network draws from the grid.
●●●
Sept 2011—DONE
“SpaceX will build a fully and rapidly reusable rocket.”
SpaceX · National Press Club
First booster landing December 2015, first re-flight March 2017; by 2024 individual boosters had flown more than twenty times. The single most consequential thing Musk has promised and delivered.
●●●
Apr 2011Apr 2026BROKEN
“I am confident we will put a man on Mars in 10 years, maybe 12 to 15 in the worst case.”
SpaceX · Wall Street Journal 'All Things Digital' interview
The worst case has now passed. No human has flown beyond low Earth orbit on any vehicle since 1972, and Starship has not yet carried a crew anywhere.
●●●
Apr 2011Dec 2013LATE
“Falcon Heavy will fly in 2013.”
SpaceX · National Press Club announcement
First flight February 6, 2018, four years late, and successful. It has flown regularly since.
●●●
Aug 2006—PARTIAL
“Build a sports car, use that money to build an affordable car, use that money to build an even more affordable car.”
Tesla · The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan
Roadster, then Model S, then Model 3 — the sequence held. 'Affordable' did not: the $35,000 Model 3 was sold off-menu for a few weeks in 2019 and withdrawn, and the next step down was cancelled in 2024.
●●●
Coming duepending claims and dated events
  1. Nov 2026Teslaon the calendar
    Cybercab Dallas launch

    Promised for 'next month' on October 21. The first expansion of the driverless Cybercab beyond Austin.

  2. Nov 2026SpaceXon the calendar
    Starship Flight 15

    Attempted catch of both booster and ship. The orbital data-centre plan assumes a cadence this flight is nowhere near.

  3. Dec 2026Teslaon the calendar
    Tesla annual meeting

    Shareholders meet amid a board review of a Tesla–SpaceX merger. A merger would need a majority of all outstanding shares.

  4. Dec 2026Teslaon the calendar
    End of 2026

    Due date for 'very widespread' robotaxis, Cybercabs to customers, Optimus for sale outside Tesla, and the Mars window SpaceX already skipped.

  5. Dec 2026Teslapromise due
    “Optimus will be in limited production doing useful work in Tesla factories in 2025 and sold to outside cust…”

    No external customer, price list or delivery date exists. On the October 21, 2026 earnings call outside sales were put 'about a year' away — which is to say, not in 2026.

  6. Dec 2026Teslapromise due
    “Robotaxis will be very, very widespread in the US by the end of this year.”

    Six metros in Texas and Florida without a safety monitor and the Bay Area with a driver as of October 2026; no new city since July. Tesla has named Las Vegas, Phoenix, Jacksonville and San Antonio as next, without dates.

  7. Dec 2026Teslapromise due
    “Cybercab launches in Dallas next month, more cities before the end of the year, and Cybercabs delivered to …”

    A car with no steering wheel can be sold in the US only under a federal exemption capped at 2,500 units a year, and NHTSA opened an audit of the Cybercab's self-certification in September 2026.

  8. Jan 2027Teslaon the calendar
    Tesla Q4 and full-year 2026 results

    Whether 2026 deliveries fell for a third straight year, and whether robotaxi revenue shows up anywhere in the accounts.

  9. Mar 2027SpaceXon the calendar
    Starship uncrewed lunar landing demo

    The test SpaceX chose over Mars 2026. Artemis III depends on it.

  10. Jun 2027Teslaon the calendar
    Customer cars unsupervised

    The Q2 2027 date given for owners' Teslas to drive themselves in robotaxi zones — the claim first due at the end of 2025.

  11. Jun 2027Teslapromise due
    “Customers' own cars will be able to join the robotaxi network, driving unsupervised, around the second quar…”

    The same capability was promised for the end of 2025 in January 2025. It is now tied to a future software version and limited to the robotaxi service areas.

  12. Dec 2027SpaceXon the calendar
    End of 2027

    SpaceX's $500bn–$1tn annual recurring revenue, one gigawatt of AI compute in orbit, Optimus to external customers, a SpaceX share for every child.

  13. Dec 2027Teslapromise due
    “Optimus will reach outside customers in about a year, and the Fremont line will reach 20,000 a week in at l…”

    The 2025 version of this claim was several thousand robots in 2025 and 50,000 to 100,000 in 2026. No unit count has ever been disclosed.

  14. Dec 2027SpaceXpromise due
    “SpaceX will put one gigawatt a year of AI compute into orbit by the end of 2027, then ten, then a hundred, …”

    Starship first reached orbit in September 2026 and has delivered 26 satellites. A million tonnes a year is roughly a thousand times the mass humanity has ever launched in a year.

  15. Dec 2027SpaceXpromise due
    “SpaceX annual recurring revenue will be somewhere between $500 billion and a trillion dollars by the end of…”

    Trailing revenue at the time was about $32 billion. The low end of the claim is a fifteen-fold increase in fourteen months — faster than any company of that size has ever grown.

  16. Dec 2027SpaceXpromise due
    “Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America — the first of many.”

    About 73 million children; roughly $10 billion of stock at the time. No mechanism, custodian or legal structure has been described.

  17. 2028SpaceXpromise due
    “Starship will fly passengers between any two cities on Earth in under an hour — New York to Shanghai in 39 …”

    No regulatory filing, launch site or vehicle configuration for passenger point-to-point flight exists.

  18. Sept 2028Teslapromise due
    “The Terafab chip plant will be in volume production in the third quarter of 2028, with a first test chip by…”

    Musk himself called the schedule 'very aggressive'. A leading-edge fab typically takes four to five years from ground-breaking to volume output; none has been broken.

  19. Oct 2029SpaceXpromise due
    “About 100,000 Starlink V3 satellites and a hundred times today's bandwidth within three years.”

    Starlink had about 10,000 satellites in orbit after seven years of launches. The claim implies launching nine times that in three.

  20. Dec 2030Teslapromise due
    “Tesla is aiming for about five million vehicles a year by around 2030.”

    Replaces the 20 million target set in 2020. From 1.64 million in 2025, five million by 2030 needs about 25% a year — roughly the growth Tesla managed from 2021 to 2023 and has not managed since.

New dated claims logged by the deskunverified

Nothing logged yet. The desk reads the wire daily and files fresh dated promises here for an editor to confirm before they enter the ledger.

About this record

Claims are quoted as close to verbatim as a sentence allows and dated to the day where the record permits. “Someday” claims are not here; a promise needs a date. The materiality weight is editorial: 3 for claims the share price rests on (autonomy, robots, the next vehicle, the growth rate), 2 for product and company claims, 1 for everything else. It feeds the promise component of the index so that a missed tequila does not count like a missed robotaxi.

The desk is a daily structured model read of 91 ledger entries against the last four days of the Tesla, SpaceX and xAI wire. It can attach evidence to an entry and suggest a status; it can log a new dated claim. It cannot change a verdict — that is a commit, with a reason, by a person. Desk rows are labelled unverified until confirmed.

Corrections welcome at [email protected]. Point to the primary source and we will fix the row.