Elon Musk has been known for his ambitious timeline estimates for as long as he's been a public figure. His hardcore fans treat these predictions like fact, but in reality they are closer to fiction.
I decided to take it upon myself to dig up as many of his predictions as I could find related to SpaceX (going back to 2002!) to see how he faired in order to create an average. I was able to find 28 predictions that actually came to a conclusion so that I could develop an average. I’m calling it the Elon Time Ratio, fancy huh? The results are actually kind of accurate!
There are many more predictions Elon has made over the years (Mars missions, orbital Starship attempt, dearMoon, etc.) that are not included because they haven’t happened yet, but I imagine that when they do, they’ll skew our data further to the right. Well, that’s life in aerospace! Enjoy the video:
Are there any predictions from my spreadsheet that are missing? Take a look and let me know.