My wife told me, "I used to think he was such a genius, the more I read about him, though, I think he's an idiot."

I have a friend who defended Musk when I called him (Musk) an asshole. I choose not to bring up anything related to Musk to protect the friendship. Same friend has been showing other signs that he's being pulled to the far-right. Makes me sad.

Hm maybe even 'normally intelligent' is a far stretch...

normally intelligent

Personally, I'd say that's stretching it a bit... 👀

After college, intelligence is overrated. There are other qualities like emotional agility, friendliness, creativity, empathy, but also confidence, money, family guidance and contacts, that actually make it possible for anyone to achieve great success while an absolute genius with a sense of humor working from his basement with a great idea/product may never get anywhere.

Musk is very good at what he's doing, but few people realise what he's actually doing. He's a showman, and the eccentricity is part of it. He pretends to be a smart entrepreneur, to obscure the real source of his income: government contracts and grants. The Boring Company and Hyperloop are directly going for government contracts, and even though no big contracts have been signed yet, you can bet that money is trickling in via various studies and proposals the companies are doing. Tesla is a sponge for government grants. Via Starlink, Musk went as far as blackmailing governments. And Twitter was purchased via foreign money (Saudi, Russian), and Musk is just doing what he was paid to do. Some may think that he's just a useful idiot, but I firmly believe he knows what he's doing. He's good at dealing with governments and doing their bidding.