He also, after apologizing, doubled down and called him a child rapist a month later.

Besides that fact that human perfection is not a meaningful concept, I personally consider that episode just a symptom of his personality - nothing more or less than a narcissist, who craves attention. I actually find it a genius, in a perverse way, in the fact that he turned the attention in a business model (although this approach is nothing new). Don't get me wrong, I credit him as a successful enterpreneur - just much inferior than the one he projects (and that a non-small audience believe he is).

Oh, if it was the only bad thing he done - but the work conditions are terrible at his factories, he actively sabotages unions, he is absolutely just sells this engineer image of him: he is NOT a founder of tesla, he simply bought the title, he takes credit for his workers’ accomplishments, the only thing he engineered in tesla for example is some design work. He also sells himself as a self-made millionare, while his father has an emerald mine in South Africa.

So basically he is a narcissist scammer.

His tweets show a trend of narcissistic behavior, the pedophile incident is merely the most egregious.

EDIT: Thanks, @brianlweiner

EDIT2: For the downvoters, whom I can only assume don't agree that he shows narcissistic asshole behavior:

Yeah, I lift a little … pic.twitter.com/UAJdv8qSw1

We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.

I’m not at risk [of contracting Covid-19], neither are my kids

Everybody dies

Tesla stock price is too high imo

Pronouns suck

If I am a narcissist (which might be true), at least I am a useful one

Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.

The "pedophile diver" remark was the culmination of a series of tweets and actions where Elon "designed" a vehicle highly unlikely to help rescue the kids trapped in the cave and tried to convince the rescuers to use it while ignoring their judgement on the matter. It's not a little mistake, it's the culmination of an extended narcissistic rampage. He seems completely incapable of admitting that he might wrong about something when faced with pushback.

People are imperfect, but people who truly delight themselves in their own imperfections have a problem and aren’t role models. Give _me_ a break, after thousands of years of forming groups humans are going to forget how to toss the assholes out? Nope.

Saying he "called somebody something mean" is a somewhat reductionist way of referring to a months-long ordeal that included hiring a (fake) "private investigator" and trying to push his "findings" to the media.

If you or I spent $50,000 to smear someone because they weren't sufficiently servile to us we might face some social and legal consequences but of course the rules work differently for "heroes" like Musk with virtues such as money.

If he'd taken back the statement, I'd agree that it was an outlier and forgivable. But he didn't; he doubled down on the pedophile label.

I never thought of Elon Musk as a narcissist, and I always assume most Elon Musk hate is political.

But the fact that he has supporters on the internet point out how he made public donations to the ACLU makes me begin to think maybe he is a narcissist.

Edit: I mean this specifically in the context of narcissism being a condition where a person tries to control the image others see of himself. Being able to make strangers say, "He's not a narcissistic asshole, he donated to the ACLU!" makes me think that's specifically an image he tried to project of himself onto others and succeeded for some.

But I don't know the man, so I'd rather think it was just a donation.