There is a surprising amount of luck and happenstance in people reaching their current positions. Even great discoveries made by smart people often originate because someone was in the right place at the right time. Most societies rewards these events, for both the individual and through inheritance their children.
Musk may be cleverer than average, but he's also come to own twitter by virtue of being successful at building paypal, followed by being able to successfully deploy capital at impactful problems at SpaceX and Tesla. While impressive achievements, these achievements do not imply that Musk will be successful at Twitter. He's known for demanding people to do their best and hardest work by pointing them at seamingly impossible but impactful problems.
Will rescuing a failing social network motivate people in the same way? I don't think so. I'd probably be willing to work 60+ hours a week for average pay to solve global warming (TSLA) or colonize Mars (SpaceX) - I wouldn't be willing to make that sacrifice for Twitter.
There is a surprising amount of luck involved. More than you suspected.
> being successful at building paypal
Musk never worked for a company called PayPal. The predecessor companies that merged to become PayPal forced Musk out around the time of the merger. Later the company changed its name to PayPal and when it went public, Musk had a big payday.
Musk was the CEO of the merged company for a few months, before being fired for incompetence by the board. Afterward, they renamed themselves "paypal." Musk was rich enough to not have to sell his shares until the IPO, so he made a big payday.
I think of Elon Musk as being that guy who goes on a winning streak playing "double or nothing" coin flips. Enough people are doing it in Silicon Valley that one of them was going to hit a run of several heads, and get rich.
You could also look at this person and wonder how much acumen he actually has if he's the CEO of three billion dollar companies simultaneously and still has time smoke blunts on podcasts. Usually CEO is a full-time job, but for him?
Maybe he's just never sleeps. Maybe the real work is being done by others (cough Shotwell cough) and he's just takes the credit (cough Tesla founder cough). Or maybe, just maybe, CEO just isn't that hard of a job?
Musk may be cleverer than average, but he's also come to own twitter by virtue of being successful at building paypal, followed by being able to successfully deploy capital at impactful problems at SpaceX and Tesla. While impressive achievements, these achievements do not imply that Musk will be successful at Twitter. He's known for demanding people to do their best and hardest work by pointing them at seamingly impossible but impactful problems.
Will rescuing a failing social network motivate people in the same way? I don't think so. I'd probably be willing to work 60+ hours a week for average pay to solve global warming (TSLA) or colonize Mars (SpaceX) - I wouldn't be willing to make that sacrifice for Twitter.