> he did jumpstart the EV industry.

This is widely believed (especially in the US, where, other than the Leaf, most early electric cars never launched), but honestly pretty dubious. The first real electric cars, with significant production:

2010 - Mitsubishi i-MiEV, Nissan Leaf

2011 - Smart electric, Volvo C30 electric, Ford Focus electric, BYD e6.

2012 - Renault Zoe (Renault launched a couple of other vehicles on the same platform ~2010, but they never saw significant production), Tesla Model S (Tesla had a prior car, the Roadster, but it never saw significant production).

2013 - VW eUP, eGolf (VW occasionally put out an electric Golf historically, going back to 1992, but again those were never produced in large quantities).

The big change ~2010 was around the economics of lithium ion batteries; they finally got cheap enough that everyone started pulling their concept designs and small-scale demonstration models into full production.

> he did jumpstart the EV industry. He has put up satellites every week for years. He is still a net benefit to all of us.

Talk to any former SpaceX or Tesla employee. They will clue you in that both were successful in spite of Elon, not because of him.

The Cybertruck was really the first product he saw to completion from his own design. And well...

I think you under appreciate him a bit here. No he's not a super genius. He's probably not even a good engineer. But he is a) a total a.hole and b) a tremendous bullshitter. There are circumstances in which you need such a person to succeed (see also Steve Jobs). He yelled at people for 10 years straight and he was crucial in facilitating capital to build these very capital intensive products. A regular smart person would absolutely not have succeeded, for these reasons.

> bullshitter

why is lying at the edge of committing fraud so respected?

I've always thought that outlier kinds of people are very valuable.

For example - richard stallman is pedantically correct about many things regarding licenses or privacy or any number of related subjects. But nobody can wholeheartedly accept and adopt his viewpoint and behave as he does (no phone, doesn't use non-free software, etc)

Musk is similar in his promises and predictions. Nobody can wholeheartedly accept his views.

But the reason these folks are valuable are - they move the goalposts. Moving the goalposts moves the thoughts and behavior of people close to their viewpoints, and can eventually unseat the complacent middle.

imho :)

EDIT: I think nobody is immune to this. Lots of people will understand the bullshit is deep when someone comes up to them and relentlessly over-the-top flatters them. But they are likely to listen to and accept the person, logic be damned.

It makes the stock go up and people earn crazy amounts of money.

iff "earn" == "receive"

In the absence of force or fraud, those are the same, more or less.