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Tesla’s long-delayed Roadster finally made an entrance — by flying off a ramp.
At a livestreamed event Thursday night, the sports car climbed a curved ramp until it was upside down, launched into the air, flipped, and landed on its wheels, apparently aided by thrusters beneath the vehicle.
“Well, it worked,” Elon Musk said during the livestream.
Musk said Tesla and SpaceX engineers collaborated on the car, which uses high-pressure air and thrusters to lift itself off the ground. Tesla also showed a recorded demonstration in which the Roadster reached 60 mph in 0.81 seconds.
While the legality of such a device on public roads remains in question, the tech world is reacting to Musk’s new creation with awe.
Here is what the leading voices in business and tech are saying about the new Roadster.
Jason Calacanis
Jason Calacanis. Bloomberg/Getty Images
Angel investor Jason Calacanis said in an X post that the videos of the flying car looked like “science fiction,” and they’re real, although they don’t seem to be.
He seemed enthused by the demonstration, asking that while the car was only airborne for a couple of seconds, “what if it could keep you in the air for five minutes? Or ten? Or 30?”
Gene Munster
Gene Munster. Brian Ach/Getty Images for LocationWorld 2016
Gene Munster, the managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management and a longtime tech ***yst, wrote his two takeaways from the Roadster event on X.
First, that “it was an engineering flex with no commercial value beyond embarrblocking traditional car makers.”
And the second was that it signaled Musk’s ambition to merge his two publicly traded companies, SpaceX and Tesla.
John Carmack
John Carmack. credit should read GABRIELLE LURIE/AFP via Getty Images
John Carmack, the former CTO of Meta’s virtual reality division, politely rejected the flying car.
“That demo involved a non trivial chance of embarrblocking failure!” he wrote on X.
He added, “I’m only going for the baseline model. At this point in my life, rocket bunny hops are out of my comfort zone.”
Marques Brownlee
Marques Brownlee. Chance Yeh/Getty Images for HubSpot
Tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee, better known as MKBHD, appeared incredulous at Tesla’s claims about the new Roadster.
“They really just got on stage and said this newly designed 4000+ pound car can do flips and go half the speed of sound (380+mph) and will ship in 2028,” he wrote on X. “This is a prank, right?”
Alexandr Wang
Alexandr Wang. Bloomberg/Getty Images
Meta’s chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang, had one burning question after watching Tesla’s Roadster demonstration.
“wait who the hell was driving the tesla,” Wang wrote on X, sharing footage of the car speeding down a dark track.
Dan Ives
Dan Ives. Astrida Valigorsky/Getty Images
Dan Ives, an ***yst at Yorkville Ives and a longtime Tesla bull, said the Roadster reveal was “a statement about where the Tesla and SpaceX engineering stacks are headed together.”
He wrote that the car’s SpaceX-developed hardware was “a small example of the synergies between Tesla and SpaceX.”
Still, he said, “The Roadster will not move the volume or revenue needle,” but would “restore the brand halo at the top of the market.”
David Marcus
David Marcus. Bloomberg/Getty Images
David Marcus, the former PayPal president and Meta executive, credited Musk with bringing a sense of awe back to technology.
“The thing I’m most grateful to Elon for is bringing back an age of wonder and excitement to humanity,” Marcus wrote on X, sharing Tesla’s Roadster demonstration.
“That was jaw-dropping awesome! Screams and mouths wide open in the audience. Nuts.”
