It's frustrating that he's so polarizing that everybody seems to oversimplify their discussions of him by reducing everything to one very narrow perspective. Tesla is a confidence game? Come on - Tesla is a company that has so much demand for its cars that people wait months to buy them, and it's done an enormous amount to shift the entire industry to electric vehicles.

That's not to say that a lot of these tweets are wrong - especially in the early days Tesla was been very much driven by Musk selling futures. He's also said things that were objectively false (see most of the dates he's ever given for stuff). But that doesn't mean the company isn't real - of course it is. And of course there are reasons beyond his charisma and ability to control information that Tesla has had so much success. Both things can be true!

It's the same thing with him personally - he's clearly incredibly intelligent and a very savvy businessman, but he also called a dude on Twitter a pedo because the guy said mean things about his submarine plan. He can be both someone who has contributed enormous things to society (particularly in terms of how much he's helped to push electrification) but also somebody who acts like a real dumbass sometimes.

Edit: typo