[mulcahey]

IMO silent majority has pretty balanced view of him and just doesn’t care to participate in a holy war praising or hating on the guy. Social media and regular media bias towards the polar opinions, as with anything else.

History respects Edison, Jobs, Tesla, Carnegie, Rockefeller, Hughes for what the accomplished while acknowledging their individual flaws. I think Musk will be remember similarly. Depending how successful his ventures are over the coming century he might even be remembered more than any of them.

[systemvoltage]

It's an interesting observation. Personally, when I look back at giants and read their biographies, I find the most interesting bits usually about how they were motivated, what drove them, how they overcame challenges and hopelessness, how they forged business relations - I think the least interesting part is their personal life and what they did to piss someone off or what they tweeted/told publicly. The latter is just typical soap opera of details that provide little value to me. The latest Steve Jobs movie primarily focused on the melodrama of his personal relationships and offered literally nothing about what made Apple succesful.

[travisporter]

Can I say, it's really refreshing to see your list of very apt comparisons to very smart and successful people. Many tech-heavy news sites (looking at you ArsTechnica) compare Musk to Newton and Einstein.

[fastball]

To me, Musk's flaws are much smaller than some of the others you mention. Namely: overly optimistic (some would say fraudulent but eh) timelines, a puerile sense of humor, and calling that diver a pedo.