I think his argument about Falcon 9 was about reliability vs reusability and he partially acknowledged he was wrong:

https://nitter.net/thunderf00t/status/961312911393218560?lan...

About the claim if he is smart or not, you might want to watch this then reevaluate your opinion:

https://youtu.be/5Hyy1zRZPiQ

The last video I watched of his was a debunking of flat earthers that was so bad it almost gave the flat earthers some credibility. Many of his 'debunkings' consisted of 'no, because science that's why' where the flat earthers had actually raised interesting questions where the answers provide a great jumping off point to explore things in more depth.

Taking ten years to come up with some simple experiments to debunk someone who is reasonably frequently publicly wrong and then labouring the point and being really condescending isn't a sign of someone being especially smart (although it's hardly stupidity either).

Its the typical build credibilty with debunking total nonsense and then use that to generate views on videos where he is suposidly depunking a lot more viable stuff.

Combine that with serving on the Anti-Musl wave and you have surefire way to be reddit famous.

Smart people make mistakes all the time. He has correctly debunked a lot of scams, it is easy to get jaded and carried away. Since he isn't an investor and doesn't have the inside scoop it is plain to see how his nitpicking, based on the publicly available information, potentially led him to a wrong conclusion.

SpinLaunch is a rather out there. I've actually had this idea and I'm sure many others have as well. I happen to think it can work but I was still skeptical when I first heard of them. You can only infer so much from the outside.

Thanks for the additional info blackholesRhot and for throwing money into this, the sort of bets we should be making. Godspeed. :)