Me and my friend were talking about this the other day. He is a huge Musk and Tesla fanboy.
We weren't talking about whether or not Musk is an asshole. It was about social media and if Twitter was ultimately a positive or negative for Musk. My friend argued that twitter has been a huge positive for Telsa and has generated a ton of hype and basically free advertising, but on the other hand Musk can be a huge moron and often sticks his foot in his mouth.
I am pretty sure we wouldn't be talking about whether Musk is a hero, asshole or just a regular ol CEO if he didn't have such a giant internet presence. Most CEOs are inhuman assholes, its probably a requirement for the job, but we don't talk about them the way we do about Musk because they try to keep their privacy and have a tight control on their image.