Given that Musk and his companies have accomplished some amazing things. Did you see the simultaneous rocket landings?

So 'self aggrandizing bluster' may not be the phrase the you're looking for. How about 'low cost, highly effective guerilla marketing' based on past performance?

Sure, his accomplishments are immense. But that doesn’t change the fact that he shipped an incomplete Autopilot and then tried to blame the guy who died using it.

> "low cost, highly effective guerilla marketing' based on past performance?"

I'm not sure that quite covers it either, since at least in the case of SpaceX he had a sizable number people rooting for him back when his rockets were still blowing up every time. Back in the Falcon 1 days.

I was one of them. I think rockets are really fucking cool. I think a lot of the leeway and fandom Elon has gotten comes from a hardcore contingent of rocket enthusiasts and electric car enthusiasts who really want to see him succeed because they were already passionate about that domain before Elon entered the picture.

In other words, wishful thinking > actual dead people, because they're not supposed to have died, therefore did not happen. Great Kool-Aid, mmmm.

There's always been an element of this to Musk's marketing, but it's gotten much more obvious lately, alright.

It's not good to think of anyone as a demigod but there's a big difference between Elon and Trump. Elon very much has a problem with defensiveness and he tweets too much. Sometimes he's also wrong about things. But I'll give him credit for being both honest and idealistic which Trump certainly isn't.