He was absolutely 100% focused on his ventures back then. His political awakening has been slowly happening over the last 10 years, at least his public persona.
There was no “turning a blind eye” when I invested in Tesla when the Dragon capsule first docked with the ISS, in 2012. I figured if this intelligent person can revolutionise the space industry, he can do the same with the car industry.
He has absolutely changed.
This is what I mean! You invested in a company that made heavy consumer goods because he did a space thing! These are totally unrelated! You liked his aesthetics!
12 years previously to that, well, there was this nonsense: https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-arm-wrestle-paypal...
Like, I'm sorry, you can't tell me that's a sensible way to do software engineering.
FWIW I also invested in BYD around the same time.
I attribute this to the amplification effect of social media has on the output from these famous people.
But at the same time I blame their slide into madness on social media because for both Notch and Musk (and I would also add JK Rowling to this list) it all started with disproportionate amount of genuine hate from well meaning individuals for stating opinions slightly outside the Overton window. I think the "twitter mob" is frankly more to blame than the people themselves, because without it, all three of them would still censor their public outbursts more than they do now after the dams of hate against them have already broken and there's no lower depths they can sink to.
That's why I think it's important to be polite even to the assholes.