Getting to Mars is a cover.
Musk is using his fortune, tax dollars, and rich investors to develop the means for the rich to escape the hell they’ve created and/or the mobs of common folk that will surely beat down his, and other wealthy oligarchs, doors when society inevitably flops. That’s why he’s ignoring regulations and laws like they don’t matter to him. When your entire purpose is to help the rich escape their fate, you don’t give a fuck about rules.
He’s an accelerationist with more money than god.
UNSTOPPABLE!!