The autism component plays a part, the obsessive thoughts perhaps, the fear and anxiety over the future perhaps, the level of focus on a special interest perhaps, however, as you suggest in other posts, it's more than that. If you combine those traits with an incredibly high level of internal drive and competitiveness, then you create a different sort of person. Very few people enjoy being around any highly-effective CEO, especially those who actually built something from nothing. Some have claimed there is a high degree of sociopathy amongst CEOs. I've said this on a different thread recently, but these sorts of people, can be the nicest, warmest people if you can see their vision and are working towards that with them with a similar type of urgency, or they can be the most brutal, meanest people if you are perceived as an obstructive force or someone who is just not performing at a high level. They quickly weed out people and attract a certain type of employee or partner to work with. "NO" is not in their mindset. "I will" is and they are not asking anyone's permission to do anything. They will go around you or through you, so either step aside or get run over.
So, yes, if you are reading about how he gutted Twitter/X (to change the direction of the company) or more recently, he changed the support structure around his Supercharger team (to make it better), or walks into a meeting and immediately fires 3 out of the 6 people on a video call without warning, this is consistent behavior with these types of people. This type of behavior happens, and Elon has the spotlight on him, where someone like a Jeff Bezos does similar things most certainly, but doesn't get the media attention. As Donald Trump used to say and do on his TV show, "The Apprentice", "You're fired." Fine, he's a jerk, but the types of things he is doing are world changing, and hopefully for the better. He's our jerk for the time being.
I asked my two boys when they graduated from engineering school if they would like to work at Tesla or SpaceX and both were like "no way", but yet Elon's companies have so many applicants that less than 1% are hired. I am not aware of any other organization that has as high of demand from applicants. The people who work at his companies know darn well who they might be working for "if they are lucky" and are more than willing to do what it takes to be placed into that culture. If you are not innovating, you're fired. If you are not willing to put in 12, 16, 20 hour days, you're fired. You are expected to sit on a factory floor with a small group, engineer at the speed of thought, and make changes while the assembly line is moving. You are given that sort of autonomy. What takes other companies years to do, they do in an afternoon. They all know that. So, to sit back and say this is cruel to the employees is only showing how "soft" you are. Just like there are dogs, horses, cattle, working animals that get excited and enthusiastic when you strap on a pull harness, there are people who are very much the same. A select few. To judge that is demonstrating a lack of perspective. Some people would not have it any other way, and these are the people he hires and keeps on his team, the 1 in a 1000 or 10,000.
I am not a "fan boy". With open eyes, I have a good sense of the type of person he is. To me, for better or worse, he is a singularity. My boys don't like Elon. "He's not an engineer!" Not by a university degree, but he is self-taught, for sure. As the OP above pointed out, and as Sandy Munro of Munro and Associates has witnessed, he can walk into any design meeting at SpaceX with his engineers and competently discuss engineering formulas, their applications, materials science with some depth, then go to NeuraLink and discuss neurology, then go to the Tesla Motors factory floor and discuss the production line, then go to Tesla Energy and discuss battery technology and production, etc. NOBODY does this, or ever has. Elon does. In my mind, he deserves every penny. I'd give him more if he could move his companies faster.
I totally ignore all the FUD out there in the media. The half-truths and twisted narratives and utter falsehoods. The legacy industrial complex is putting billions into a media blitz trying every little angle they can, every day, doing whatever they can to ruin him, short his stock, pull the rug out from under him, it's obsessive to the point where no other person or group of companies has ever seen the like. Yet, the companies keep marching forward, if not one, the other, at different times. When you step back and see the larger picture, it's all quite the phenomenon we are witnessing. The autistic kid with a dream versus a gang of some of the most powerful corporate entities in the world. I'm just sitting back with a box of popcorn watching it all unfold.
Last edited:
Info dump warning! Psychopathy is one of my special interests. 
