They wanted flying cars and got 140 characters—15 years later, Musk drove a car into the sky
Thiel’s words once took aim at all of Silicon Valley. Now his archrival has made them a reality
In 2011, Peter Thiel and Founders Fund wrote a line in their famous investment manifesto that struck a nerve across Silicon Valley:
“We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.”
Fifteen years later, at SpaceX’s rocket test site in Texas, Musk hit the accelerator and brought a real Roadster capable of lifting off the ground into view of the entire internet.
1 | What that lament was really criticizing
The line printed on the manifesto’s opening page was written by partner Bruce Gibney, but its soul belonged entirely to Thiel.
On the surface, “140 characters” referred to Twitter.
But at its heart, it condemned Silicon Valley’s lost decade: brilliant minds no longer wanted to take on the physical world, no longer wanted to sweat over building heavyweight technology. Instead, they flocked to social networks, ad distribution, and traffic-driven business models, congratulating themselves.
The digital world celebrated; the world of atoms stood still.
Only now, with rockets being recovered again and again, humanoid robots entering factories, and rocket thrusters being fitted to sports cars, has Silicon Valley finally been kicked back into the dust-filled era of hard tech.
2 | How exactly does this car fly?
Strictly speaking, it’s not a flying car that can cruise for miles like something from a sci-fi movie. It’s a low-altitude flight-control demonstrator: a Falcon rocket with wheels.
Its power source isn’t aviation fuel, but brutally powerful cold-gas thrusters.
The car is packed with 10 high-pressure nozzles. Those at the rear deliver the extraordinary acceleration that tears through the air, while the body-mounted thrusters handle hovering and fine adjustments. The technology is lifted directly from the systems Falcon 9 and Starship use to adjust their orbits in outer space.
Two high-pressure tanks with a combined capacity of 600 liters hold 250 kilograms of compressed air. The onboard system can even replenish the air itself.
The undercarriage also has a ground-effect fan system built by SpaceX, capable of generating up to 2G of downforce—enough, in theory, to race upside down across a ceiling.
It goes from 0 to 60 mph in under a second. Deliveries are slated for 2028, and the thruster version comes with a $250,000 deposit.
Of course, as usual, Musk said nothing about its range or exactly how long it can hover.
As CNN quoted one engineer in the industry, bluntly: “Strictly speaking, it’s not flying. It’s bouncing around in a high-pressure stream of air.”
3 | Twenty-six years of love and hate: Silicon Valley’s most expensive entanglement
The most dramatic footnote to this flying sports car isn’t in its technical specs, but in the 26-year history of rivalry between two men.
In 2000, Musk’s X.com and Thiel’s Confinity merged to form PayPal. The two camps slammed doors over architecture and naming day after day.
While Musk was away on his honeymoon and raising funds that September, Thiel joined forces with the board to stage a palace coup and snatch the CEO job from him.
In 2002, eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion. Musk walked away with $180 million and, still stinging from the betrayal, set his sights on space and electric cars.
2008 was the turning point.
Falcon 1 exploded three times. Musk was on the brink of bankruptcy, and Thiel’s Founders Fund threw him a $20 million lifeline.
His biography says half of that investment was intended to make amends for the guilt Thiel felt over what had happened years earlier.
Thiel asked if he could speak with the chief rocket engineer. Musk coolly replied: “You're speaking to him right now.”
But Thiel saved the rocket and completely missed the car.
Tesla was valued at just $70 million at the time, but Thiel didn’t invest a cent. Years later, he admitted defeat: “We should have invested in that one.”
Over the long years that followed, their fates underwent a curious role reversal in matters of power and ideology.
In 2016, Thiel stood alone in support of Trump, while Musk kept his distance from Washington.
By 2024, Musk had become Trump’s biggest financial backer, while Thiel watched from the sidelines, casting a vote but keeping his money in his pocket.
In 2025, Musk ran the Department of Government Efficiency, but many of the sharpest people beneath him came from Thiel’s circle of protégés and associates.
They were even less restrained in public.
In 2025, Thiel mocked Musk’s robotics plans as “not thought through at all,” declared that Musk no longer believed in Mars, and even urged him to withdraw from the Giving Pledge.
Musk hit back, publicly firing a shot this February: “I have never wavered.”
4 | The final irony
The man who once wrote “we wanted flying cars” put his money behind rockets, but completely missed the car with wheels.
And those “140 characters” he once saw as a symbol of Silicon Valley’s decline are now themselves part of Musk’s private empire.
The physical world’s ironies are often stranger than fiction.
You lament that the world has been reduced to code typed out on keyboards, and in the end, the one who drives a car into the sky is none other than your archrival—the man who bought Twitter and whom you once forced out.
| You lament that the world has been reduced to code typed out on keyboards, and in the end, the one who drives a car into the sky is none other than the archrival you once forced out.
Thiel’s words once took aim at all of Silicon Valley. Now his archrival has made them a reality
In 2011, Peter Thiel and Founders Fund wrote a line in their famous investment manifesto that struck a nerve across Silicon Valley:
“We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.”
Fifteen years later, at SpaceX’s rocket test site in Texas, Musk hit the accelerator and brought a real Roadster capable of lifting off the ground into view of the entire internet.
1 | What that lament was really criticizing
The line printed on the manifesto’s opening page was written by partner Bruce Gibney, but its soul belonged entirely to Thiel.
On the surface, “140 characters” referred to Twitter.
But at its heart, it condemned Silicon Valley’s lost decade: brilliant minds no longer wanted to take on the physical world, no longer wanted to sweat over building heavyweight technology. Instead, they flocked to social networks, ad distribution, and traffic-driven business models, congratulating themselves.
The digital world celebrated; the world of atoms stood still.
Only now, with rockets being recovered again and again, humanoid robots entering factories, and rocket thrusters being fitted to sports cars, has Silicon Valley finally been kicked back into the dust-filled era of hard tech.
2 | How exactly does this car fly?
Strictly speaking, it’s not a flying car that can cruise for miles like something from a sci-fi movie. It’s a low-altitude flight-control demonstrator: a Falcon rocket with wheels.
Its power source isn’t aviation fuel, but brutally powerful cold-gas thrusters.
The car is packed with 10 high-pressure nozzles. Those at the rear deliver the extraordinary acceleration that tears through the air, while the body-mounted thrusters handle hovering and fine adjustments. The technology is lifted directly from the systems Falcon 9 and Starship use to adjust their orbits in outer space.
Two high-pressure tanks with a combined capacity of 600 liters hold 250 kilograms of compressed air. The onboard system can even replenish the air itself.
The undercarriage also has a ground-effect fan system built by SpaceX, capable of generating up to 2G of downforce—enough, in theory, to race upside down across a ceiling.
It goes from 0 to 60 mph in under a second. Deliveries are slated for 2028, and the thruster version comes with a $250,000 deposit.
Of course, as usual, Musk said nothing about its range or exactly how long it can hover.
As CNN quoted one engineer in the industry, bluntly: “Strictly speaking, it’s not flying. It’s bouncing around in a high-pressure stream of air.”
3 | Twenty-six years of love and hate: Silicon Valley’s most expensive entanglement
The most dramatic footnote to this flying sports car isn’t in its technical specs, but in the 26-year history of rivalry between two men.
In 2000, Musk’s X.com and Thiel’s Confinity merged to form PayPal. The two camps slammed doors over architecture and naming day after day.
While Musk was away on his honeymoon and raising funds that September, Thiel joined forces with the board to stage a palace coup and snatch the CEO job from him.
In 2002, eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion. Musk walked away with $180 million and, still stinging from the betrayal, set his sights on space and electric cars.
2008 was the turning point.
Falcon 1 exploded three times. Musk was on the brink of bankruptcy, and Thiel’s Founders Fund threw him a $20 million lifeline.
His biography says half of that investment was intended to make amends for the guilt Thiel felt over what had happened years earlier.
Thiel asked if he could speak with the chief rocket engineer. Musk coolly replied: “You're speaking to him right now.”
But Thiel saved the rocket and completely missed the car.
Tesla was valued at just $70 million at the time, but Thiel didn’t invest a cent. Years later, he admitted defeat: “We should have invested in that one.”
Over the long years that followed, their fates underwent a curious role reversal in matters of power and ideology.
In 2016, Thiel stood alone in support of Trump, while Musk kept his distance from Washington.
By 2024, Musk had become Trump’s biggest financial backer, while Thiel watched from the sidelines, casting a vote but keeping his money in his pocket.
In 2025, Musk ran the Department of Government Efficiency, but many of the sharpest people beneath him came from Thiel’s circle of protégés and associates.
They were even less restrained in public.
In 2025, Thiel mocked Musk’s robotics plans as “not thought through at all,” declared that Musk no longer believed in Mars, and even urged him to withdraw from the Giving Pledge.
Musk hit back, publicly firing a shot this February: “I have never wavered.”
4 | The final irony
The man who once wrote “we wanted flying cars” put his money behind rockets, but completely missed the car with wheels.
And those “140 characters” he once saw as a symbol of Silicon Valley’s decline are now themselves part of Musk’s private empire.
The physical world’s ironies are often stranger than fiction.
You lament that the world has been reduced to code typed out on keyboards, and in the end, the one who drives a car into the sky is none other than your archrival—the man who bought Twitter and whom you once forced out.
| You lament that the world has been reduced to code typed out on keyboards, and in the end, the one who drives a car into the sky is none other than the archrival you once forced out.