I mean he hasn't actually built a Mars colony yet has he!!!!!!! I think people think that the fact that he doesn't succeed at everything right away makes him a failure. But Elon understands that to make the massive leaps he wants to make in terms of space travel and establishing permanent habitats on naturally uninhabitable planets. It will require the type of learning you can only achieve from an awful, awful lot of failure. As a private company, Space X is less bound by politicking in the way that organisations like NASA are, so he can make a lot more mistakes and push us far, far further as a result.
Most of what he does is done with an eye to Mars. Electric vehicles that can operate autonomously or from a central computer will be pretty much essential on Mars. Hyperloop, which is currently largely unworkable in Earth's atmosphere, will be the most likely long-term means for moving between colonies or from colony to mining site on Mars. Even the plan for what he wants to do with Twitter will be more important in a space colony than it is to us.
That said, I don't think he had the emotional intelligence to understand that most people value their interpersonal relationships more than their work. It means he makes demands of his staff that most people find unacceptable. And it's probably a huge part of what ends his relationships.