For me, Musk's major failure was with the children who were lost in a cave and his pedophile tweet. Everyone has flaws and makes mistakes, but that mistake showed me how flawed his personality is. It was classic narcissism behaviour, right from textbook.
Further, Musk didn't get involved until asked to do so, deferred to other experts, and praised the efforts of everyone else involved: https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-full-story-behind-Elon-Musks...
Clearly narcissistic behavior.
I think there are very few among us that could juggle the responsibilities he's got and keep up the schedule he's got and not get tilted now and again. It's part of being human, which seems to be lost on a lot of people today. It's also why a schedule like that is a really bad idea, for anyone, and why one of the most productive things an ambitious person can do is build a good team.
[I let you decide if this is pure PR, or real apologies.]
I've run out of fingers to count how many times over the last few months I've see keyboard psychiatrists apply 'narcissism' as a catch-all for any kind of outlier behaviours.
I'm no Musk fanboy, but the narcissism trope feels particularly way off in his case.
I want to be a Musk fanboy. I am very much into the things he's innovating. I care about those things (solar power, electric vehicles, (self-)sustainability in general, though SpaceX not so much). He's become a if not the face of those ideals I find important. That's why that particular tweet was so disgusting and ultimately disappointing to me. I did not see it coming!
I actually didn't feel at all disappointed by the tweet. I feel disappointed by people's lack of concern for a guy who's fighting the good fight who is clearly going through something awful.