You make it sound like he's selling ads online or something, not building rockets and electric cars, self-driving software and now robots? Like, if you wanted to make as much money as possible and "fool" people as you say, doing a rocket company and a new car company at the same time, pouring all the $100m you earned from selling your previous company, being months from bankruptcy in both ventures seem like a very roundabout and stressful way of becoming a billionaire.

I don't understand where you people get your world view from, are you exclusively reading click-bait news headlines and coming to the conclusion that Elon=Bad? How about reading some actual accounts of the early days at SpaceX for example? I can recommend "Liftoff", it's very balanced, focuses mostly on the employees of SpaceX and doesn't try to paint Elon as some kind of heroic figure, but gives credit where it's due. He comes off as a highly technical, maniacal, single-minded founder, inspiring but working his staff to the bones, and sure, also has some darker sides to his personality. It's the kind of personality that's required to pull these things off.