And solar panels. And electric vehicles..

Note though that solar panels are half as effective on mars given it's distance to the sun, nuclear is even more important on Mars than on Earth.

True, but there is a ton of open space on mars. They can just cover more area to make up for it. Plus the lack of real weather would make the solar panels more consistent.

is that true? how much effectiveness are you gaining with the thinner atmosphere?

Definitely not as much as you are losing to the inverse square law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law#Light_and_o...

It's about 40% of Earth's surface before accounting for the thinner atmosphere and about 60% after.

Yes, I'm sure that's at least part of the reason why he's doing this. He's trying to "learn" about digging (and reaching 5x, 10x higher efficiency) by doing a (hopefully) profitable business around it first.