He really is/was smart about some things - marketing and self-promotion. He started with millions and ended up with hundreds of billions, all thanks to his marketing skills, and knowing how to be in the right place at the right time.
Being good at one thing doesn’t automatically mean he’s good at other things - like running a company, or being an engineer as he likes to imagine himself.
Honestly, it’s not that hard to make a truckload of money if you start off with a busload of money (in this analogy, the truck’s bigger). Capitalism is pretty much built to ensure that the rich will either stay rich or get richer unless they’re completely irresponsible with said riches.
And paying attention to trends isn’t a stroke of genius, either. As for marketing, the ‘fresh rebel tech magnate’ turned out to be just a shitposter without the proper context in which to “shine,” nothing more.
"Because his wealth is entirely in overinflated Tesla stock, and because he’s already massively overleveraged from buying Twitter, coming up with that money means selling Tesla stock, and because the Tesla stock price is based on dreams and unicorn farts any amount he sells tends to sink the price.
And there’s no telling when the Tesla stock price will just collapse entirely as investors finally start valuing it like a car manufacturer, and not like kind of predestined savior of the human race (for context, Tesla in its entirety is currently valued at $800bn. Ford is currently valued at $40bn. And Ford sell a LOT more cars than Tesla)."
This is a quote from a comment above. What he’s “smart” about is being a conman. Which doesn’t really take intelligence. It just takes some trial and error and enough money starting out to make mistakes.
