I think Elon says things fully expecting them to become true.

Whenever I hear him say "I'm confident that X will happen by Y", I mentally add "provided that every single engineer at [one of his companies] puts in 20 hour days for 2 years and manages to solve a mountain of problems that have never been solved before."

Sometimes it works, which unfortunately encourages the behavior.

I thought that of him years ago, but it's become really clear to me since then that he just lies.

But, practically speaking, that distinction doesn't matter much. Either way, it means you can't believe anything he says just because he says it.

I fully expect he does too. A bit like Steve Jobs' reality distortion field.

So not a fraudster, just a confidence man… a conman.