I tend to fall in the camp that a “fundamentally dumb guy” won’t be able to successfully start, grow and run Tesla and Space X.
Was buying twitter a mistake? Sure. Did he make dumb decisions when it comes to twitter? Yes. But IMO, that’s very different than labelling someone “fundamentally dumb”
seems a lot of people confound funding and founding, he was one of Tesla's early funders, but he was not part of the team that founded it.
> he sank an initial investment of more than $6 million into Tesla, which was then not much more than a pair of founders and a vision of electric sports cars.
> So AC Propulsion CEO Gage suggested Musk speak with electric car start-up Tesla Motors, which was also looking to commercialize the tzero. Musk reasoned that by teaming up with another company, he could “have my cake and eat it too,” he said on the podcast – he could still run SpaceX but also pursue his passion for electric cars in his spare time.
> “I didn’t think it would be easy, but I thought maybe I could allocate 20 to 30 hours a week and just work on product engineering, and then other people could do the other stuff. I didn’t like doing the other stuff anyway,” Musk said.
Was buying twitter a mistake? Sure. Did he make dumb decisions when it comes to twitter? Yes. But IMO, that’s very different than labelling someone “fundamentally dumb”