Back then I didn't know about how good public transit is better than even the cleanest electric car because I had never experienced good public transit and well I have very limited imagination (I thought the Dropbox was a sucker that I was taking advantage of because I could get extra 50 MB or whatever by just walking up to someone in my dorm and referring them to use Dropbox, even if they had no intention to continue using Dropbox...)
Also: He's a complete hobgoblin of a human being.
Both things can be true.
About 80% of the people that I respect, I have lost respect for because of Twitter.
They just can't help themselves with the populism.
But I think any liberal/left-ish person who grew up with super conservative parents has lived this their entire lives.
That said, Musk is nowhere near as outrageous as those talking heads.
Without them, we may not get much press at all from him, he may be a bit of an unknown quantity.
His Social Media / PR is a gigantic part of his value. It distorts reality to a much, much larger audience.
Do you remember 'Maroon 5' the band? They had 'Really Big Hits' back in the day . Banger / Chart toppers. But it wasn't until the lead singer was on 'The Voice' did it make them a 'Household Global Name'. There were a poppy band with a tiny bit of an edge that appealed to a demographic, now, they are like 'Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune' - multigeneratoinal giants.
Musk has fanboys that are Dentists in Malaysia, street kids in Cairo, wannabe ballers in mid level cities in China etc. etc..