I'm not sure any of those prove he is a genius (SD>>4 say). Why does every successful person have to be a super intelligent person? None of the quotes, the interviews I've heard, etc put beyond what I would expect of a reasonably intelligent engineer. Engineering/Science/Math attract "geeks" sometimes with frightening Jeopardy levels of breadth in general science/engineering/etc fields.
And given all the batsh*t crazy, conjecture, etc one hears from him, i'm inclined to believe its less unstable genius, more lucky nerd. That doesn't mean he isn't smart/driven/etc, it just means he isn't this big brain who can predict the future and knows the secret formula to living on mars. In some ways the successes are logical steps. AKA, the tesla manufacturing problems, translate to knowing how to avoid similar issues when building rockets. Most of what has been accomplished looks like well applied engineering, which is more about sweat than genius. So from the outside it looks more like a mix of gambling + luck + solid management skills + ability to avoid technical dead ends. Does that make him a genius, or just someone with tenacity? Given the failures and close calls, I'm included to believe its less genius, more tenacity and just enough luck. Both tesla and space-X have been one bad day away from not existing. The fact that they are still around is luck as much as skill.
There's a lot of things you can say about Elon like crazy, blinded by money and power, hubris, etc. Lucky? If you start one billion dollar company, sure. The man built up Paypal, Space X and Tesla. The jury is still out on Boring Company but it's still drilling in Las Vegas.
I'm sure he got lucky with Paypal but you can't luck out this many times. The guy clearly knows how to build billion dollar businesses.
And given all the batsh*t crazy, conjecture, etc one hears from him, i'm inclined to believe its less unstable genius, more lucky nerd. That doesn't mean he isn't smart/driven/etc, it just means he isn't this big brain who can predict the future and knows the secret formula to living on mars. In some ways the successes are logical steps. AKA, the tesla manufacturing problems, translate to knowing how to avoid similar issues when building rockets. Most of what has been accomplished looks like well applied engineering, which is more about sweat than genius. So from the outside it looks more like a mix of gambling + luck + solid management skills + ability to avoid technical dead ends. Does that make him a genius, or just someone with tenacity? Given the failures and close calls, I'm included to believe its less genius, more tenacity and just enough luck. Both tesla and space-X have been one bad day away from not existing. The fact that they are still around is luck as much as skill.