Ruining his reputation with whom?
Every notable figure, and likely (almost) every person, has done things that are bad. Gandhi was a racist, Lincoln's social media squabbles led him to a duel, Edison electrocuted an elephant for entertainment or advertising, and so on. That Musk has flaws shouldn't surprise anyone or discredit him for his accomplishments.
I personally don't respect him any less if he just finds and supports smart people, but for some reason others dismiss that unless they think he is personally designing rocket engines.
On top of that, you'd have to treat his Twitter account as anomalous and not indicative of his day to day work because of ...some reason?
If you look at it from the perspective of someone who likes Musk, then he's the lynchpin of Tesla and SpaceX which are advancing humanity, every other company's EV and self-driving features are only because he lit a fire under them; and the stuff he's doing with his money is much more exciting than other billionaires like Larry Ellison.
But from the perspective of someone who doesn't like Musk, it's engineers/ scientists/ programmers doing all the real work; 90% of Musk's promises remain undelivered; and his contribution to each company is so minor he can 'lead' five companies at once and still has so much free time he wants to buy a sixth.
And if seeing him be an asshole to that diver is what changes you from one perspective to the other?...
Ask the engineers of any failed companies what real work they’ve been doing?
> 90% of Musk's promises remain undelivered
He promised the hard things that are more often than not fail. He doesn’t care if he is wrong.
> his contribution to each company is so minor he can 'lead' five companies at once and still has so much free time he wants to buy a sixth.
That’s an uncharitable take. He is obviously doing a good job given how EVs are being seen today, and how dominant SpaceX has become. One may argue he isn’t afraid of challenge, and work six times as hard of other CEOs
Regardless of the current culture, you may reject the worldview in which a few mean Tweets are a reason to destroy/forever despise a person, regardless what that person has achieved otherwise.
In fact, the more people reject this judgmental, fire-and-brimstone attitude, the better place the social networks will be.
The current standard where gangs of people try to make other people permanent social outcasts based on one or several short quips somewhere on Twitter is psychotic, North Korea style. You do not have to accept it as normal.
Why are Elon Musk haters so irrational when they make their arguments?
Reputation can matter a great deal to a billionaire and many have gone through impressive efforts to burnish theirs.