I suspect that when the ashes cool enough for the rubble to be probed, it will be found that almost nothing Elon did before the enormous Tesla share run-up scales.
Guerrilla marketing is great for a Tesla, a SpaceX, a Boring, etc. when they are small and fast moving. Even gaffes accrue to one's benefit by making one look authentic.
When 80% of your revenue is top-tier brands burnishing those brands to "the right people" you can't do that. You really can't let the people susceptible to scammy vitamins, pillows, and prepper supplies displace those "right people" or those are the only ads you have left.
I believe he was honest when he spoke about how Twitter should be a neutral public square with no political leanings and so on. But it's one thing to want something, another to have a plan for it, and yet another to execute that plan properly.
He thought he can improvise and good things will happen. Instead he got tricked by wingnuts into destroying his $44B investment.
BTW it's funny if you think about it. First he had the poll, restoring Trump won the poll, and THEN elon said he "always believed banning a sitting president is a great injustice that should be corrected". He *always* believed that. But only *after* the poll.
The sad thing is the poll was something like 51% vs 49%.
"How to alienate half your audience in... one steps."