Elon Musk Closes 2025 with a Series of Unfulfilled Promises: DOGE, xAI, Tesla, SpaceX

As 2025 comes to a close, Elon Musk once again becomes the center of controversy as a series of public commitments he has made over the years continue to go unfulfilled. These promises span from SpaceX, Tesla, xAI, the X platform, to the DOGE government initiative, and most are wrapped in the familiar “super optimistic” tone of the tech billionaire. Promises About Mars: Repeated but Never Achieved Since 2011, Elon Musk told The Wall Street Journal that humans would set foot on Mars within 10 years. However, by the end of 2025, more than 14 years later, humanity still has not launched any crewed missions to the Red Planet. In 2016, at Recode’s Code Conference, Elon further adjusted the timeline: Rocket will fly to Mars in 2018 Missions repeat every 26 months Humans launched in 2024 and arriving in 2025 He affirmed: “If everything goes according to plan, we could launch humans in 2024 and reach Mars in 2025.” However, 2025 has passed without any launches as promised. The appointment of Jared Isaacman – an Elon ally – as NASA chief at the end of November further shifted SpaceX’s focus to Earth orbit and testing, rather than interplanetary missions. The previously publicized milestones quietly expired without suitable updates. Hyperloop and “Near Future” Projects Left Uncertain Hyperloop, an idea Elon described as the fastest transportation method between cities, even countries, was promised to take shape around 2025. But to date, Hyperloop remains at the experimental and conceptual stage, not yet a commercial transportation system. Tesla Robotaxi: Reality Fails to Keep Up with Promises In Tesla’s Q2/2025 earnings call, Elon announced that robotaxi would cover “half of the US population by the end of the year.” The reality was quite different. Austin, Texas remains the only city with active robotaxi operations Even there, residents rarely see the vehicles running Vehicles still require safety monitors and are not fully autonomous Previously, Elon stated during the Q4/2024 earnings call that Tesla would operate driverless cars in Austin by June. Texas law requires a safety monitor, and this requirement has never been lifted. Although Elon repeatedly posted on X that safety drivers are only temporary and would be eliminated by year’s end, by December 2025, he could only say at an xAI hackathon: “Unsupervised mode has basically been addressed.” In reality, fully autonomous vehicles still have not appeared. AGI, Tesla Roadster, and Unfulfilled Demonstrations At the end of 2024, when asked on X how long until AGI (artificial general intelligence), Elon replied briefly: “Next year.” As of January 1, 2026, AGI remains unrealized. In November 2025, on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Elon said that the Tesla Roadster – a sports car announced in 2017 with deposits taken – would soon have an “unforgettable” prototype demonstration, hopefully before the end of the year. Result: no demonstration, no new Roadster, and of course, no flying cars as he previously mentioned. DOGE: From $2 Trillion Down to a Few Hundred Billion After Donald Trump was re-elected, Elon Musk took over DOGE – a new federal group aimed at cutting government spending. Initially, Elon promised to cut up to $2 trillion in wasteful, fraudulent, and inefficient spending. This figure quickly dropped to $1 trillion, then further down to a few hundred billion dollars, highlighting the gap between ambition and execution. Conclusion: Big Vision, Eroding Credibility There’s no denying Elon Musk is one of the most influential figures in modern technology and business. However, his continuous issuance of overly optimistic timelines that go unmet has increasingly questioned his credibility. 2025 once again shows: Elon Musk’s vision is vast, but his promises often outpace reality.