[throwawaylinux]

I don't venture too far on the internet, but the only thing like a cult of personality around Musk I've seen is the anti-Musk cult going on and on about how he is a "garbage human", he's a fraud, not a real engineer, and how annoying his cult followers are, when it comes to any vaguely related topic.

This story for example, of the comments where Musk is first mentioned in a thread, 3 (including the dead one) are anti-Musk, and 1 is neutral (using Musk as shorthand for Musk's businesses), and zero are positive. Nothing rabidly pro-Musk.

So I rather think stories like this are being upvoted because people like hearing about travel, internet and comms, rockets, satellites, and the like. I don't think it's very charitable to think it's only due to some vapid Musk fan club.