Is Elon Musk a genius or a madman?

Elon Musk, the world’s richest person with a net worth of $426 billion, is a controversial figure these days.

Since spending $277 million to back US President-elect Donald Trump in the November 6 election and being appointed as the co-head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in return, Musk has grown increasingly vocal on X, the social media site he bought in October 2022 for $44 billion.

Musk, 53, has been accused of turning X into a right-wing echo chamber and has recently embraced the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfG) party in the lead-up to next month’s election, as well as criticizing the UK government and posting comments on immigration and crime in Spain.

Thanks to his polarising comments, the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX is often referred to on social media as a madman, a conman and even the “real” US president.

In a series of posts on X earlier this week, Seth Abramson,  a US-based author and Musk biographer, said he believed the tech billionaire was going mad.

“I legitimately believe Elon Musk may be going mad. I’m a Musk biographer who has been tracking his online behavior for the last two years – and given that he’s admitted to all of mental illness, heavy drug use, and crippling stress, it is now reasonable to fear that he is deeply unwell,” Abramson said in the X post.

“His private struggles would not be of general concern except they have dramatic public consequences. His holdings across many civilization-essential industries and the fact that he’s the incoming POTUS mean that his madness and increasing incitement of violence endanger us all.”

However, Musk is also described as a genius – he is believed to have an IQ of 155, placing him in the highly gifted category, along with Albert Einstein – having built Tesla into one of the world’s biggest electric vehicle (EV) makers. He is also the founder of SpaceX, the Boring Company and Neuralink.

There are signs, however, that his business acumen could be on the wane – despite his skyrocketing net worth, which is primarily derived from the equity he has in his companies rather than cash in the bank.

X, for example, has plummeted in value by 75 per cent and is now worth $7.79 billion, according to Bloomberg. Tesla, meanwhile, posted its first annual sales drop in 2024 and lost its title as the world’s biggest EV maker to BYD.

But, as Abramson said in another post on X today: “He also has a degree of luxury that lets him get credit for running many companies even as a) he has little expertise relevant to any of them, b) all run better the less he’s involved in them, c) he spends much of his time playing video games.”

What do you think? Is Musk a genius or a madman?