Between the API changes, the Blue-to-appear-in-For-You, and this Matt Taibbi stuff, I don't see how people will be able to excuse his blunders much longer.
A combination of greater exposure and success going to his head is making most people realize that his skills in other areas are limited and morally he's pretty gross.
One point of view is that he's just a con-artist, a marketer of his own genius, and other people do the actual work.
Another view is that he is really a genius, who has built a number of successful companies and is one of the wealthiest people in the world.
I feel that it's likely that both are partially true - he did play some important role in building up these companies, but greatly over-estimates his own abilities and understanding.
Without a mind-reader, however, we might never truly know.
First time was during the "March to 2500", where we were going from proto production on the model 3, to full ramp up on the first line.
We worked 12 hour days, but we missed that target, for a number of reasons. Mainly the GA line was this complex layer of conveyor belts with mezzanines and lifts. We couldn't get all the parts to a compact GA 3 line like envisioned.
Elon came in guns blazing. He told everyone to rip out the conveyors, lifts and equipment and build a new, completely manual GA line 'GA 3.5' in the back lot in a tent and we have two weeks to do it.
IT WAS ALL HANDS ON DECK. Senior level, to interns. I was working a saw to cut through conveyors and drag them outside next to the VP of Engineering, solar. Elon was patrolling around, helping where ever needed.... for a month. He slept on a little cot in a the 'mars' room.
Everything seemed crazy at first, and incredibly destructive... Although alot of Tesla employees are bonafide Elon fan boys, but I though the whole thing was absolutely bonkers.
When Elon was walking around and saw a group standing around, he asked why they weren't cutting. They reply'd that they didn't have the torque tools to remove the motor and were waiting on someone to bring them. Elon proceeded to gather everyone around, put on glasses and cut directly through the $30k motor. He then gave alittle speech about how it is costing to company $4m a day to not be at run rate. The speed and efectiveness of our ability to build 3.5 was of the utmost importance. It fired everyone up and we worked our asses off to get foundation, sprung structure, and GA 3.5 up in the time period. We pushed all our suppliers very hard and we picked ones that could deliver on our timelines.
I've never had a conversation with Elon, but i have been in plenty of rooms where he has spoken to employees. I would say what makes him great is his technical prowess, his ability to focus on what matters, and inspire confidence in those who work for him.
I can't support his actions with twitter, but he's always been a loose cannon.
And how long did the company wait to replace that motor? How much did that cost?
Maybe that was, in fact, the right thing to do. But it's great to be the guy who doesn't have to answer to anybody if you do it wrong.
To my knowledge no one cut through another motor, but we went and robbed the proto line of every single tool to make sure that wasn't going to be a thing going forward...
Tesla - this is the one very good bit of timing. At about the time Tesla got going, it was about electric cars' time anyway, due to battery progress (notably, after decades of car manufacturers occasionally flirting with electric cars, with useless results, the Tesla Model S, first-gen Leaf, and Renault Z-E platform all landed within a few months of each other). If Tesla had started a decade earlier, it would have failed; a decade later and it would have been too late. The self-driving stuff is also an attempt at sci-fi actualisation, and is, er, less successful.
SpaceX - reusable rockets are of course straight from the pages in sci-fi (and, like electric cars, occasionally flirted with by rocket designers over the decades). Jury's really still out on whether this one is a success, I think.
Hyperloop - pure fantasy; even where vacuum trains appear in sci-fi, it is very often in the context of being broken.
Boring company - impractical.
Neuralink - common sci-fi concept. Doesn't appear to be going very well.
Twitter is of course a major departure.