As an ex spacex employee I can definitely say that it wouldn’t have been half the company today if Musk want in charge. Not a fanboy but trying to give an honest evaluation. Space is crazy hard and doesn’t happen without brilliant people so of course the credit for the success of the company goes to the engineers and everyone that gave some of their best work to making it happen though that type of success doesn’t happen without Musk at the helm. When it comes to space, he is truly a visionary that pushes for the craziest ideas and then challenges these brilliant people to make it happen. He truly loves space and has embraced learning everything there is to know about the engineering side of things so it’s not like what he’s proposing is impossible. It’s just batshit crazy, moon shot type of ideas and then the brilliant people that he’s been able to recruit are able to make it happen. It’s a BRUTAL work environment from a work life balance perspective but you don’t mind because you’re working on SPACESHIPS with some of the most brilliant people you’ve ever met and doing some of the most impactful work of your life.

I try to separate the visionary tech genius side of him from the public crap that he’s done to ruin his public image. He has achieved the impossible so many times that he’s developed a god complex. I can’t speak to the electric car part but I’m impressed that he was able to will the country into caring about electric cars. He literally reinvented the space industry and made it cool again. But personally he’s a shit show that has gone unchecked for too long.

When it comes to Twitter I doubt his magic is going to carry over to running a social media company. His style works because of the culture he’s able to build and the vision that he’s able to sell. From what I can tell he’s ruining the good parts of the Twitter culture and he doesn’t have a vision. Good luck to anyone working there. The years that I spent a working at spacex were the best years of my life that I’d never want to repeat again.