Elon Musk’s Latest Antics Have Some Asking: Is He Out of Touch?

livemint.com:

When Elon Musk threatens to drive uninvited to a business rival’s house to physically fight him, it raises questions about what’s going on with the world’s richest man. Among them: Has the joke gone too far? What started as a funny tit-for-tat in late June about a potential physical duel slipped into weird territory when Mark Zuckerberg’s handler had to issue a statement Monday that the Meta Platforms boss wasn’t “going to fight someone who randomly shows up at his house." Such antics are now leading some Musk supporters to worry aloud that he has lost touch, saying he is ensconced in a distorted reality that is warping his perspective and threatening his businesses at a time when he is trying to oversee multiple companies in different industries.

“Before the cult of personality, he would get feedback and adjust the wildness appropriately," tweeted Fred Lambert, editor of a website devoted to electric cars called Electrek. “Now with the cult of personality in full force, the feedback loop is broken.

He gets validation from the millions of fans who think he can do no wrong, and those who disagree are labeled as the enemy," wrote Lambert, who has described Musk as his hero. Musk often talks about the importance of negative feedback.

Just this past week, for example, he was engaging with X users raising complaints and thoughts about the platform, formerly known as Twitter. “Thankfully, Twitter will always provide you with a negative feedback loop," Musk said at a conference earlier this year.

Of course, business leaders who seem to be detached can have negative consequences. Heading into bankruptcy reorganization more than a decade ago, General Motors senior leaders were painted as out of touch, riding elevators from their