Why anyone believes the things that come out of Elon Musk’s mouth is a mystery. The vaporware king has peddled so many outlandish claims over the years that it’s difficult to keep a tally. Still, for whatever reason, he retains a small but devoted following who think his utterances are prophetic prognostications rather than the creative ideations of a sci-fi fanboy.
One of Musk’s recent dubious claims was that Tesla would launch its robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, by June, claiming that the service was “tentatively scheduled” to occur on the 22nd of that month. No sooner had he made this promise than a bet sprung up on Polymarket, the Peter Thiel-backed gambling site, over whether it would come to pass or not. Musk subsequently highlighted the bet on X, calling it a “Money-making opportunity.”
The bet’s page asks the question: “Will Tesla launch a driverless Robotaxi service before July?” In its description of the terms of the bet, the page states: “This market will resolve to ‘Yes’ if Tesla publicly launches a fully driverless taxi service by June 30, 11:59 PM ET. Otherwise, it will resolve to ‘No.’” the page states. “Any service that allows a member of the general public to summon and ride in a Tesla vehicle operating without any human—onboard or remote—actively controlling the vehicle will count.” The page also notes: “A program that is restricted to Tesla employees, invite-only testers, closed-beta participants, factory self-delivery features, or the mere release of Full Self-Driving software for private owner-drivers will not qualify.”
Tesla robotaxis have since “launched” in Austin but, unfortunately for the bettors who voted “YES,” the company’s new trial doesn’t seem to quite live up to the bet’s stipulations. Futurism notes that the robotaxi rollout has been invite-only and “the vehicles are all supervised by a human ‘safety monitor’ who rides in the front passenger seat.” As a result, those who voted ‘YES’ have been bitterly fighting the tide of reality.
“If individuals paid to use a service ($4.20), they are legally considered customers, not testers, under consumer protection laws,” one user, who bought nearly 22,000 “YES” shares, posted. “CASE CLOSED. Resolve should be Yes.”
Another commenter, who bought over 80,000 YES shares, argued: “Neither Tesla or any other credible sources mentioned anything about ‘Testers’ or ‘closed beta’. The rules never said the paying customers cannot be invite-only. They only exclude ‘invite only testers’, not ‘invite only customers.’”
Critics, meanwhile, have offered only dry bemusement and a hint of schadenfreude for the bet’s losers. “Insane Yes holder echo chamber energy in here,” one commenter noted.
In the past, Musk has made very specific and very grandiose promises that never came to pass (for instance, in 2019, he once claimed he wanted to build a 6-mile Hyperloop by the year 2020, a dream that remains unfufilled). It should be noted that, in this particular case, however, Musk was relatively vague on the details (hence his use of the word “tentatively”). Relatedly, his comment that the bet was a “money making” opportunity never stipulated how exactly someone could make money from it. Maybe he meant that there was much to be gained by voting “NO” on the bet.
Tesla does plan to expand the rollout of its automated vehicles in Austin over the coming months, though such advancements are obviously too late to meet the current bet’s cutoff. You can certainly understand the bitter disappointment here, as it really seems like all the “YES” voters are about to lose a gargantuan amount of money. Nearly $9 million in bets were placed on the Tesla launch.
The final review of Polymarket’s robotaxi bet is set to end late on Thursday. The company did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.
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