It is not just fashionable, it is downright easy due to his personality. His methods of communication on many topics, particularly political ones, are purposefully misleading and manipulative.

But he is 100% correct about the need to become an interplanetary species. On a long enough timeline, it's the only option to keep our future selves in existence. While I'd certainly prefer to have some wholesome, highly decorated astronaut with an honest streak and a perfect temperament be the one who started SpaceX and enabled multi-planetary travel, I still believe it's better that Musk is doing it than no one at all.

> From the very beginning SpaceX’s long term business vision has been to enable middle class emigration to Mars.

That should have been enough reason for everyone to dismiss Musk, but unfortunatley too many uninformed people in charge.

Mars is -60 celcuius on average, and lack an atmosphere. Youd die off cancer from radiation exposure within a year IF you had every other life supporting system in place.

Then theres the seasonal explosive eruptions, no soil and countless other reasons this is a moronic enterprise.

This aint fashionable, its facts. The sad part is that I think Musk actually knows this but his fans too dumb to see the charlatan for what he is.

There are 40 years of work by subject matter experts on how to adapt to Mars and to adapt Mars to us. Are you aware of this work? Have you read any of it? All of these problems have reasonable solutions, and as someone who has spent 30 years in and around this field, it is frustrating to see this middlebrow dismissal be so commonplace.