> The CEOs of those other car companies were not raging egotists

Actually, from the stories of 1950's and 1960's Detroit, in fact they were. I don't know about today.

  > backed up by a crowd of howler monkeys chasing a parasocial dopamine hit.

_This_ is the problem. Who cares if Elon eats kittens or promises Mars rocks in the glovebox? It's the Twitter Shitters magnifying every musing into predictions and three-page blog posts that is the problem. Just don't listen to them.