Musk seems to be more of an asshole, like someone affecting an exaggerated version of his image of Steve Jobs. There are entirely valid critiques of Steve Jobs

Musk seems to be more of an asshole, like someone affecting an exaggerated version of his image of Steve Jobs. There are entirely valid critiques of Steve Jobs. His overly restrictive and proprietary technology being a major one. But the myth that he was some kind of social monster is ahistorical. Steve Jobs was very opinionated, honest, and unafraid to tell people what he thought. At times he was overly harsh, no doubt, and sometimes a bit of an asshole. He was "world-class" but not a "world-class asshole" by any reasonable measure. At best, he was a very minor league asshole. The world-class assholes in business are the people pouring pollutants into rivers/air or selling cigarettes/alcohol/opioids. Anyone who thinks Steve Jobs was a terrible person has no perspective whatsoever. They're evaluating his agreeableness against the typical bullshitting-manager at Google or Microsoft. People promoted specifically because they're mediocre people-pleasers. The proof that Steve Jobs was not a "world-class asshole" is that he had many friends. And many people that consider their time working with him to be the height of their career, even if it was also very intense. There are a grand total of 3 stories about mistakes he made (and eventually made up for) in his entire life, all of which he made in his early 20s or earlier. As much as people try to tear him down, he lived a better, fuller, and more positively impactful life than all but a handful of people in history. He was superficially obnoxious to many, but fundamentally kind person. He hurt no one and provided incredible value to billions.