[orleyhuxwell]

'Clever Hans was a horse that appeared to perform arithmetic and other intellectual tasks during exhibitions in Germany in the early 20th century.' - wikipedia

We should be able to hold 2 things in mind at the same time.: a leader (i.e. Elon Musk) can be extremally charismaric (in his specific nerdy way), can have a great talent in filtering ideas that people pitch to him - optimizing for coolness factor. He can even be able to speak about these ideas for hours in captivating maner. A skill in deal-making, getting financed, inspiring people is also real.

At the same time such person can be extremally narcissistic and impulsive + clearly addicted to public drama focused on him or her.

And these character tratis seem to control him, so this person will always choose the 'more power, more news, more controversy' path even when it clearly doesn't make sense.

Add to it a society with a strong cult of personality (a feature of US culture) and some of the lucky reckless charismatic people will get very powerful eventually and also get rewarded for doubling down on their worse decisions.