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He's a good engineering manager, at least in terms of getting results. It's not like he wrote the code to do vertical rocket landings though, he's got big teams of technical people that do the work. And even then how much of it is his management, and how much of it is just appeal to engineers who want to solve hard problems regardless of who the manager is?

But he's probably not that much smarter or dumber than many of us, he's human and he's just as susceptible to cognitive biases and logical fallacies as the rest of us.

Combine that with a huge echo chamber of millions of fans telling him he's humanity's salvation and the money and power to ensure that everyone tells him what he wants to hear and it doesn't seem unusual.

I'd probably be the same if I had millions reenforcing my nonsense beliefs day in and day out.