Elon Musk has tried to help fix these 7 humanitarian crises — here's how he's doing so far

The eccentric billionaire and real-life Tony Stark has courted controversy and made headlines for all the wrong reasons lately, but he's also had some remarkable success in developing world-changing technology.

For all his bluster, attacks on journalists, and odd behavior, he does seem genuine in his offer to help solve some of humanity's most dire problems.

He's put his money where his mouth is. Climate change? Musk's electric car company, Tesla, has made electric cars exciting. Traffic woes and all the negative health effects of congestion-caused pollution? Musk created The Boring Company to dig a network of tunnels below Los Angeles to avoid gridlocked freeways. Colonizing other planets to save ourselves from extinction? SpaceX is working on it.

Beyond these moonshot initiatives, Musk has delivered real results. After Hurricane Maria knocked out power for millions of Puerto Rico's residents last year, Musk donated hundreds of solar-powered batteries to the island.

Below, we check in on a few of humanity's problems Musk said he wants to solve. Here's where he's at — and whether or not he's actually helping.

The Crisis: Rescuing Thailand's cave boys

The Fix: A "kid-size" submarine.

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The Verdict: Not helping — at least for this specific mission.

The Crisis: Flint's lead-contaminated water

The Fix: Replacing pipes, adding water filters.

The Verdict: He's helping, though it's still early.

The Crisis: Traffic, and the negative health effects of gridlock

The Fix: An underground network of tunnels.

Like many of us who aren't eccentric billionaires, Musk hates sitting in traffic. His solution to LA's notoriously traffic-clogged freeways: digging a network of tunnels beneath the city.

Traffic is more than just an annoyance. According to a recent study, the air pollution generated by traffic can lead to an increase in heart disease and stroke risk for those living near congested areas. Other studies have shown that people living near major roadways in congested cities have an increase in emergency room visits and mortality, among other health effects.

Through The Boring Company, Musk is seeking to connect LA's densest neighborhoods with an underground "Loop" system that could carry passengers — and even cars — up to 150 miles-per-hour, cutting travel times across the city, and reducing traffic-caused pollution in the process.

While this sounds amazing in theory, the reality is a bit murkier, as Business Insider's Matt DeBord wrote.

The system is set to benefit well-off Angelenos and avoids some poorer neighborhoods (where commute times are often longest) altogether. It's another billion-dollar solution to a problem that could be more easily solved by telecommuting or shifting work hours, DeBord wrote.

The Verdict: Too early to tell.

The Crisis: Hurricane Maria's devastation in Puerto Rico

The Fix: Powerwall batteries

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The Verdict: He's helping.

The Crisis: Affordable housing

The Fix: Lego-style bricks for building houses cheaply

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The Verdict: It's too early to tell whether this will work.

The Crisis: Climate change, and weaning humanity off fossil fuels

The Fix: Electric cars and solar energy.

If there's a grand vision that unites Musk's seemingly-disparate ambitions, it's solving the existential problem of climate change.

Central to that problem is weaning humans off fossil fuels and moving the world to renewable forms of energy.

His electric car company, Tesla, produced the most profitable electric car ever sold in the Model 3. But the company's stock price — owing partly to its eccentric CEO's erratic behavior — is volatile as ever, as Musk continues to make headlines for the wrong reasons.

Musk has also struggled with meeting the demands of both his consumers and investors at Tesla. He called building and delivering the Model 3 "production hell" as Tesla raced to produce enough to meet Musk's promises.

Beyond electric cars, a large component of Tesla's business is in solar energy. That part of the business has seen its share of struggles in recent weeks, as the company announced it closed 14 solar installation facilities and laid off 9% of its workforce.

But Musk has done more than perhaps any other recent entrepreneur to make electric cars mainstream in our collective imagination.

The Verdict: He's helping, but it's an ongoing struggle.

The Crisis: A mass-extinction event wiping out all life from Earth

The Fix: Colonizing Mars and becoming a multi-planetary species.

Musk's rocket company, SpaceX, has lofty goals. One of its chief ambitions, Musk said, is the colonization of Mars, ultimately pushing humanity to become a "multi-planetary" species.

In 2013, Musk expanded on his thinking around this. "

While this is only a problem to the more imaginative among us, Musk has actually made some progress to that end.

According to a presentation he gave last year, SpaceX has developed some of the equipment needed to make life on Mars a reality, including a pressurized oxygen tank, and engines capable of propelling a spacecraft to Mars — part of a rocket Musk calls the BFR, or Big F*cking Rocket. SpaceX also successfully landed its reusable Falcon Heavy boosters during a test launch in February.

That said, we're still a long way from colonizing Mars. The technology to transform the dry, dusty Red Planet into a thriving Martian metropolis just doesn't exist yet.

The Verdict: He's helping — if you really think this is a problem worth solving.

Elon Musk has tried to help fix these 7 humanitarian crises — here's how he's doing so far

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