Donald Trump wants flying cars. Elon Musk says they’re a dumb idea

“Just as the United States led the automotive revolution in the last century, I want to ensure that America—not China—leads this revolution in air mobility,” says the 2024 Republican presidential candidate in the video.

But Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, already dismissed the notion that flying cars are the future of transportation. Back in 2017, Musk told Bloomberg that flying cars were a dumb idea, at least for city travel. 

“Obviously, I like flying things,” he said at the time. “But it’s difficult to imagine the flying car becoming a scalable solution.”

For one thing, he said, fender-benders up in the air could send down debris that could hurt people. 

“If somebody doesn’t maintain their flying car, it could drop a hubcap and guillotine you,” he said. “Your anxiety level will not decrease as a result of things that weigh a lot buzzing around your head.”

He also noted the noise problem flying cars would likely create. They’d need to generate significant downward force to keep from falling, which would mean plenty of wind and noise.

Trump shared his video, entitled “Quantum Leap in the American Standard of Living,” on Truth Social. In it, the former and possibly future president said America has “lost its boldness,” which it would get back under his leadership. 

He said he would launch a contest to charter up to 10 new “freedom cities” on undeveloped federal land, each about the size of Washington, D.C.

“We’ll actually build new cities in our country again,” he said. “These freedom cities will reopen the frontier, reignite American imagination, and give hundreds of thousands of young people and other people, all hardworking families, a new shot at home ownership and, in fact, the American dream.”

He continued, “Another big opportunity is in transportation. Dozens of major companies in the United States and China are racing to develop vertical takeoff and landing vehicles for families and individuals.”

The video came ahead of Trump’s Saturday evening address to the Conservative Political Action Conference.  

Vertical take-off and landing vehicles are in various stages of development but are not expected to become widely available anytime soon.

Musk, of course, focuses more on underground solutions to transportation as founder of The Boring Company. That firm has already built a tunnel system below Las Vegas that currently services different sections of the convention center, with other stops planned.

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