October 19, 2026
The American magazine “Atlantic” has revived the debate on the feasibility of technological innovations and the limits of individual ambitions, following the unveiling of the new prototype of the “Tesla Roadster” car capable of performing jumps and maneuvers in the air, in light of the mounting criticism directed at Elon Musk’s political and economic influence.
In an article titled “A flying car should never be made,” the magazine highlighted the method of presenting the new model. The car was suspended upside down on a curved track before performing maneuvers that included jumping over a Tesla Semi truck, using pneumatic thrusters developed in cooperation with SpaceX.
Although the magazine described the display as impressive and funny as a result of what it considered to be confusion in Musk’s presentation, it went beyond the engineering aspect to take a skeptical position in considering the flying car as an inevitable symbol of technological progress.
Following the unveiling of the car, Musk recalled a quote by his former partner in PayPal, investor Peter Thiel, that appeared in a statement by the Founders Fund company in 2011, which said: “We wanted flying cars, but instead we got 140 characters,” criticizing at the time the technology sector’s focus on social networking projects such as the Twitter (currently It has invested in the Facebook platform itself.
The essence of Atlantic’s criticism centers on the extent to which the flying car provides actual solutions to mobility problems, considering it an expression of an ideological symbol of absolute individual freedom based on the subjugation of the material world, which justifies its warning title, which raises major question marks about the priorities of technical development and the extent to which it meets the real needs of society.
It is noteworthy that Elon Musk had revealed this prototype equipped with jumping and aerial maneuvering technologies, on the evening of Thursday, October 15, 2026, during a demo held at a facility affiliated with “SpaceX” near the city of Waco in the American state of Texas.
