People tend to view antisocial or idiosyncratic behavior in successful people as being a necessary component of their success, as it separates them from their contemporaries in the social and professional mainstream. The same can be said about many successful entrepreneurs and business people, if they're famously irascible or ill-mannered, that will be held up as a noble quality by their peers, even as it's denounced amongst their peers.

TL;DR: Linus Torvalds created Linux, and by extension a cargo cult around his personality, whereas the theoretical asshole on your team who won't take your PR is just an asshole.