This. I used to be a big fan, but this fact has become transparently obvious in the past few years and makes it really hard to like the guy.

Now I'm just waiting for his big announcement that he's putting together a crack team to develop a COVID-19 cure/vaccine, at which he'll throw a few million dollars and achieve nothing other than to stoke his ego and reputation. I hope I'm wrong.

This is way more nuanced than chess though. You can be smart for shareholders and still be dumb. The further he goes into the robotic visionary the more unlikable he, and Tesla, becomes. That can wreck a company that is so reliant upon a loyal following that bought the cool factor and brand. It can easily vaporize. And we have a major event that is not good for Tesla's demographics. A lot of people had no business buying Tesla's during more confident times. Competition has increased. Cool factor dwindling with so many on the road. These pressures will test them without the right leadership.

Cheap money will certainly help though.

Very flawed analogy. You're talking about qualitatively-different decisions in the same "game". I wasn't, since I was critizising him based on his decisions regarding public health (handling covid-19, to be precise); I explicitly acknowledged his seemingly outstanding competence with regards to other matters (what you would refer to as "chess" in your analogy).

If he made a decision that appears to be wrong or stupid regarding Tesla cars or SpaceX, I'd be more cautious to call him out. But my comment wasn't even close to be about that. I hope you can understand what I'm saying here.