

Sexually harassing his employees hit the headlines in 2016; rumours before that. Inserting himself into the Thai cave rescue and the “pedo guy” slander was 2018. Hyperloop was 2013. No Lidar on Tesla. If you’ve been paying attention he’s been outing himself for a long time.
Now you mention it, the Mars thing was - and continues to be - another unscientific pipedream. The examples I gave were all plainly stupid and/or disgusting at the time.