Do you believe that financial and business success is the only measure of merit?
By most accounts, Putin and the Saudi royals command even more wealth than Musk does, are they worthy of still more praise?
This is just one person's opinion, but I'm pretty sure we've got a developing Howard Hughes situation on our hands. He's only 52 so it's going to get a lot worse.
Lightning struck a second time with X.com, first with a very fortuitous merger and then with his gigantic golden parachute when the board voted to fire him as CEO in favor of Thiel (it's difficult to credit him for landing that giant eBay exit since he had gotten the boot over 2 years prior).
He deserves credit for taking the gamble on SpaceX and seeing the early potential in Tesla though.
I think the truth is that these two companies were a great fit for Musk's style in particular, not that Musk is necessarily a great leader.
What I mean is that Musk is reportedly overbearing and extremely demanding as a leader, and if you don't deliver he will fire you without hesitation. In most organizations that would quickly lead to morale and staffing quality problems, but SpaceX and Tesla worked on really sexy problems, so people were willing to put up with a lot of bullshit and abuse in exchange for getting to work on those problems.
Based on how Elon seems to be running Twitter, it doesn't seem like he ran SpaceX and Twitter in that fashion with intent because he realized he could get away with demanding so much from his employees. Rather it's just how he operates -- meaning that he got lucky, yet again.
But we'll see, right? Twitter is basically the opposite of a sexy problem, so if he turns that around then maybe he really is a talented leader.
Tesla was barely more than an idea when he joined and he started SpaceX. You are speaking nonesense. His leadership style obviously finds employees who accept or even thrive in it. The success speaks for itself.
> What I mean is that Musk is reportedly overbearing and extremely demanding as a leader, and if you don't deliver he will fire you without hesitation. In most organizations that would quickly lead to morale and staffing quality problems, but SpaceX and Tesla worked on really sexy problems, so people were willing to put up with a lot of bullshit and abuse in exchange for getting to work on those problems.
All that you have said just as much applies to Jobs. Just because you might find that style of leadership unappealing there is a type of person who seeks it out.
Jobs' greatest strength was probably his way with people. He was a perfectionist, and if you got his way he was merciless, but he was also deeply charismatic and persuasive, and seemed to have an eye for talent. There are many stories about him personally persuading people to come onboard or stay, here is one:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/09/how-steve-jobs-convinced-tim...
And here's a relevant Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_distortion_field
Elon, by contrast... Uh, Elon is autistic.
No it is not. You're just blinded by Musk derangement syndrome and grasping at any straws that might dismiss his accomplishments.