The whole living on Mars is just a marketing ploy by Elon Musk. He doesn't use standard marketing, he IS the marketing. Cult of personality.
So when he talks about sending people to Mars he's really just drawing attention to his own businesses.
NASA has been pushing the Mars barrow for almost 50 years, I recently read book about Neil Armstrong & it was part of Nasa's agenda way back in the late 60s early 70s. Musk is very much a late comer to the equation.