[elliekelly]

This is absolutely true. But I think “smart” leadership avoids repeatedly doubling down on their mistakes. You can, very rarely, double down on what looks like a bad bet and come out ahead. I’m not even sure I’d call that smart but it does happen. But it takes a not-smart person to see the losses stacking up over and over and decide to dig in their heels.

Even if you’re absolutely certain your goals and overall strategy are right a smart person would understand that something needs to change in the messaging and/or execution given the overwhelmingly negative feedback.

[ehsankia]

I really don't want to be defending Elon, but I think saying "Elon must be stupid because of how he handled Twitter" is as silly as "Elon had success with Tesla and SpaceX therefore he knows how to run companies". Those two seem like two extremes.

The answer seems more along the lines of, Twitter and its problems are very very different from Tesla/SpaceX, and while Elon may have been good at the latter, he has zero experience with the former.

That being said, not realizing the above I guess makes him partly not-smart, and I assume the shortsightedness was due to the inflated ego caused by his previous two successes.

[elliekelly]

Yes I think it’s probably more accurate to say his problems stem from ego & arrogance rather than stupidity.