"If we get lucky, maybe four years," Musk said. "We want to send an uncrewed vehicle there in two years."
The ambitious 2026 goal matches with what Musk outlined at the International Astronautical Congress in September 2016, when he said that, "if things go super well", landing people on Mars "might be kind of in the 10-year timeframe".
"I don't want to say that's when it will occur – there's a huge amount of risk," Musk said in 2016.
Elon Musk has said he is 'highly confident' SpaceX can launch a manned mission to Mars in 2024. Photo / AP
SpaceX plans to use its 165-foot tall Starship to get to Mars, with the company planning on launching it on top of a giant rocket called the Super Heavy.
When ready, the Starship will be able to carry 150 tonnes of cargo and 100 people to Mars on each trip.
The early flights in 2022 will be designed to deposit cargo on the Red Planet that can be used by astronauts when they get there in 2024 or 2026.
Musk estimates it will take about a dozen Starship missions to Mars to deliver enough material to build a self-sustaining colony there.
Given the orbit window of Earth and Mars and depending on how many Starships the company can build and launch, the company could conceivably have enough gear on Mars for a human settlement by 2050, Musk said.
In 2018, Musk said a Mars colony wouldn't just be an "escape hatch for rich people" and believes it would be affordable enough for anyone to move there.
Though he said living on the Red Planet would be hard work at first and could only house "the most infrastructure" with "just a base to create propellant, a power station, blast domes in which to grow crops, all the sort of fundamentals without which you could not survive".
"There will be an explosion of entrepreneurial opportunity because Mars will need everything from iron foundries to pizza joints to nightclubs," he added.
"Residents could expect a fairer form of government called direct democracy in which everyone votes on every issue," Musk has previously stated.
