...in no small part because the brazen arrogance, sociopathic cruelty and shit-eating snark people like Elon possess signal them as alpha males in modern society, and people honestly think those qualities are necessary in innovators and leaders (although I suspect a lot of that is people projecting a power fantasy from their own misanthropic behavior.) That so many beta fanboys in this thread are white knighting for him is as ghastly as it is to be expected.

... and because this is Hacker News, yes I'm aware the "alpha/beta" male thing is based on a discredited model of wolf pack hierarchy but the meme was assimilated into popular culture anyway so it's true for people now even if it was never true for canines.