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.