Haha, don't know where the downvotes are coming from, this is the absolute truth right here.
He knows the world idolizes him as a slightly eccentric genius engineer with a heart of gold, and I think there's probably some truth in that, even. Nevertheless, if you are smart enough to be a good engineer, it doesn't take much to realize that you can greatly expand your aura by occasionally trolling people with something stupid just to see if you can get away with it. The fans will adore him more, the critics will pounce, but the net result is more exposure, and more exposure gets investment money. Rinse, repeat.
Personally, I think one of the smarter touches is to release/leak information that looks bad shortly before releasing information saying that the problem was overcome. This constantly reinforces the impression that anything Musk-related is always overcoming impossible odds. "Andrej didn't think we could do it, what do you think now, Andrej?" "The Starlink terminal costs $2400, but just a few months later, it costs $1000!"
