It was completely expected. Elon Musk is basically a cult figure for a lot of wannabe "entrepreneurs", so criticism of him or his company is taken very personal

It was completely expected. Elon Musk is basically a cult figure for a lot of wannabe "entrepreneurs", so criticism of him or his company is taken very personally and responded to very harshly. (lest you doubt this, go dig up some of the Boeing 787 threads and see what people were saying about him there -- the level of outright worship of him in the HN comments was more than a little bit scary)