Musk has no political sense whatsoever, he’s far too impulsive. But the impulsiveness does make headlines which people mistake as media savvy.
That’s how he got himself into this mess in the first place. Musk impulsively decided to offer to buy Twitter with no due diligence, then sensibly tried to back out when he came to his senses (helped a bit by the Fed), but was forced to purchase it anyway. Of course it’s a disaster. He bought it on a whim and has no idea how to run a social media company.
When Elon gets in trouble it’s for something that nobody supports (like calling that guy a pedo), and his supporters just sort of feel bad about.
Also he didn't design the SpaceX rocket. He had a hand in the first prototype, which crash and burned. Literally. That's his contribution in terms of engineering.
His overall contribution is PR and attracting capital. That's really it. I'd say sits closer to a politician.
Politicians have to answer to their constituents, engineers have to answer to the laws of physics, and entrepreneurs have to answer to the laws of economics.
Celebrities are beholden to nothing but marketing, and until recently, Musk (or someone on his team) has been doing a pretty good job of selling his image.
From that viewpoint, it makes sense as to how he could be successful in some venture and not so in others. The hypothesis would mean that he's very good at organizing, dealing with bureaucracy, doing PR etc. Not so much at actually building things, designing, engineering, or basically building consumer business.