Musk is a grifter. He’s saying these things to get money from governments. He’s funding masturbatory billionaire fantasies with taxpayer money, while those same taxpayers are struggling to afford food, housing, and education.

Musk notes if SpaceX “gets lucky and things go according to plan”, a manned flight could launch in the 2024 window with a landing on Mars in 2025.

note that the source for this quote was a Washington Post link which is now 404 but which you can see from the URL was from 2016 (as is the question linked in this post).