As for Elon, he's currently doing a bad boy anti-government bit in an attempt to make Tesla "electric cars you can buy even if you're a Republican". Since we want those people buying EVs instead of coal rolling, that's a good thing.
NO.
Investors are supposed to be able to live with all the usual risks of technology, execution, marketplace dynamics, etc.
They are NOT supposed to be OK with deliberate fraud.
If you invest at Early_Round when the tech looks promising, but then it fails to develop, CEO truthfully tells everyone what failed, the plan to overcome the failures, and you invest in Later_Round, or don't, and it ultimately fails and you lose your investment, fine.
BUT, if you invested in Early_Round and then the tech fails to develop, but the CEO straight-up lies to you and says they are "light years ahead of everyone else", shows phony endorsements from major industry players, and more so that you invest again in Later_Round, and then lose your shirt - that's fraud, and all involved in the fraud should be prosecuted, convicted, and jailed.
Anything less will create an environment where blatant lying for 100s-of-$millions is okay, and that is doomed to systemically fail.
The specific comment that I was responding to seemed to say it should be okay to defraud Accredited Investors should be "able to live with that".
How many rounds did Draper participate in? If Draper stopped after the first round or two, then it "got some early money from SV but everything else came from outsiders."
Also Cruise wants to license to automakers, not make their own car, so they have to act like trustworthy partners in their PR. Elon has his own car company and instead is antagonistic and belittling to automakers because he thinks there's a competitive advantage to it. Any positive sentiment towards his competitors is potentially lost sales for Tesla. Capitalism encourages zero-sum thinking and rewards zero-sum strategies.
CEOs are marketers and salespeople primarily and as such know how to play different roles for different situations. They code switch just like everyone else. The role isn't for everyone in tech because a lot of tech people don't have the people, political, and acting skills for it.
tldr; capitalism doesn't work well with honesty, in fact it works best with dishonesty. You don't have a personal relationship with a CEO or company, you're just absorbing marketing delivered via executive personalities. Personalities are perfectly valid marketing tools in capitalism. Take that as you will.