In a recent interview with Ross Douthat for the New York Times, Thiel revealed that the Tesla and SpaceX CEO no longer envisions a Martian colony as a viable project for humanity to establish a new society. "2024 is the year Elon stopped believing in Mars," Thiel stated.

Musk has long been an advocate for interplanetary expansion, but Thiel argues that the vision has shifted.

What was once an ideological pursuit has now become purely technological. Musk previously claimed that humans could reach Mars by 2028 and emphasized last month on Fox News that establishing a colony on the Red Planet is crucial for ensuring "the long-term survival of civilization in the hopefully unlikely event that something terrible happens to Earth."

Following Musk's recent departure from the Trump administration, he has been focusing more on SpaceX. However, his aspirations faced a major setback last week when one of his "Starships" suffered a "catastrophic failure" and exploded.

Thiel claimed to the New York Times that "Mars was supposed to be a political project; it was building an alternative. And in 2024 Elon came to believe that if you went to Mars, the socialist US government, the woke AI would follow you to Mars."

This change of heart, according to Thiel, stemmed from a conversation Musk had with Demis Hassabis, the head of Google DeepMind AI in London. The discussion revolved around whether AI or interplanetary travel would represent the most significant technological breakthrough. After Hassabis remarked, "Well, you know my AI will be able to follow you to Mars," Musk reportedly went silent.