Is Elon Musk a con artist?

There is a negative article out about Tesla.

My opinion of Tesla is that it cannot work from an engineering perspective.

There are those who think otherwise, but the problem is with the batteries.  They weigh too much.

I'd prefer a hydrogen fuel cell approach, but that is not what Musk is doing.  Since he believes in AGW, his entire premise is questionable.  But a fuel cell car can be made to work, provided that the power comes from nuclear energy.  The infrastructure for transport of hydrogen can be solved by using ammonia as the hydrogen carrier.  That infrastructure for ammonia transport already exists.  But Musk's preoccupation with so-called green technology may doom his cars.  Solar power for cars?  Come off it.

One thing I really like is his reusable rockets.  That is first class.  As for that achievement, I was doubtful at first.  So, what the heck do I know?  His idea of transporting 100 people at a time to Mars seems rather fanciful, however.  We'll have to see on that one.

He needs an energy source in order to feed all those people and keep them alive for months at a time.  Then he has to do it on Mars, which has no way of supporting anybody at this time.  Much work has to go into the project before he can even put a handful of people on the surface for any length of time at all.  Solar power on Mars is also doubtful.  You lose a lot from the distance from the Sun.

One last thing:  if his cars are so good, he should be able to make money.  So far, he has not.  Seems to me that he needs subsidies for his cars.  Without subsidies, his car company won't make it.  On the other hand, rockets will always need government assistance.  He will always have a market for cheap rockets.  He can compete with other rocket companies for government money.

Musk can con people into buying his stocks for his car company fantasy.  But it will never work as an economic enterprise.  Neither will his Mars colony.  He needs to solve some ginormous technical problems first.

His ideas appeal to people with expansive imaginations, but we live in a real world, with real limitations.