All the stupid stuff that came out of his mouth in the past. For example, that hyperloop concept.
Ridicolously stupid, any high schooler with basic grasp of economy and physics can see how it would never work outside some Hype Man's words
When he said that he found the concept of public transport creepy and stupid, not realizing that for non-billionaires it's kind of a necessity.
When he gets in twitter flame wars with random journalists like once per month.
Or when he tried to look like a hero with the guys trapped in a cave and got all pissy when they pretty much told him his publicity stunt wasn't needed and called one of the rescuers a pedo for no reason.
When he married for the second time the woman who divorced him. And they divorced again one year later.
okay i mean dumbass is pretty broad but most of it seems to stem from bad social skills. idk what the hyperloop concept is tho. is that the tunnels hes been digging? anyway u seem to have ur reasons, but as far as musk being dumb i think ur misguided !!
He's not strictly dumb, he's more of a jackass and a con artist. Yes, the hyperloop is based on buiilding thousand of miles of underpressurized tunnels in which small capsule-like "trains" should run at high speeds.
But it is absurdly expensive, impractical and dangerous to keep thousand of miles of tubes in a void state and make people run at high speed in there.
To the point noboby would even hazard presenting such a project at a random tedx, but Musk and his legions of zealots pretended it was doeable and it would have solved puiblic transit and probably cancer, too.
So far they've only built few hundred meters of prototypes, and it's clear they will never actually do it. It was just another publicity stunt, that the masses have already forgotten.
And calling it bad social skills is reductive, you don't go around calling actual heroic speleologists "pedos" just beacuse they stole your limelight unless you're simply an asshole with an inflated ego, that he proved several times for example insulting "wired" jorunalists over absolute non issues.
Musk acts like he's the savior of humanity, and his stans are absolutely unbearable.
So far, it's mostly smoke, and many are starting to turn on him. Even reddit, that just last year was the temple of musk veneration, has become quite cold after his last tirades.
Seeing him smoking blunts with Rogan like a 14 years old didn't help, too.
These sorts of ideas provide a perfectly adequate boost to the mythology of him as a genius inventor, as well as cover for when he's failing with tesla. Earnings call soon? Here comes a rocket-boosted toaster! There's people under youtube videos with him, talking about being mindblown by his explanations of physics 101 concepts. People want their messiah and they won't be denied.
Listened to the podcast in the car, I think he is probably a smart guy, but tbh. he doesnt have anything to show for his engineering proficiency ...
about bill gates it is at least said that he invented an algorithm which was the best design for 19 years ... I dont know what Musk engineered, not even sure he engineered anything at paypal ... but he always states that he sees himself as an engineer ... but he is more like a steve jobs in engineers clothing imho., similar to jobs he manages to get people to buy his premium products because of some image he portrays, I am not saying he is uncapable of engineering, but he hasnt anything to show for it, why doesnt he just just say that he is an entrepreneur, like Jeff Bezos who has cs/electrical engineering degree and prolly knows a thing or two about engineering, but still presents himself as an entrepreneur ... maybe entrepreneur for those two guys is not the right word, maybe some mix between ceo and senior architect, but definitely not an engineer who actually has to come up with results
I think you're exactly right. As for the question, I think it's a way to make his enterpreneurship and image work best. He's the general playing the image of a soldier's general, in the trenches with them. And a lot of people seem to believe it... So his engineering genius image seems to just be smart marketing, from what I can tell.
he's rich and successful and most of his haters are not.
I'm guessing anyone "in" enough with the original creators of google to the point where he could crash at their place on a weekend has something about them which they have seen with their own eyes and I'm guessing you don't get close to people like that without serious talent/ability.