> He's always been like that - narcissistic, manipulative, dishonest, hateful, lacking empathy, attention-seeking, unhinged.

That only makes it even more impressive that he has managed to accomplish truly world-changing things like building reusable rockets or practical mass-market EV's. Most "narcissistic, manipulative, dishonest, hateful, lacking empathy, attention-seeking, unhinged" folks wouldn't manage to do anything even marginally worthwhile, even in such a key position as, e.g. being president of a large superpower. (Also, let's give the previous U.S. president credit where credit is due; he might have a repulsive personality, but at least he didn't start any foolish wars! So there's that, too.)

> narcissistic, manipulative, dishonest, hateful, lacking empathy, attention-seeking, unhinged.

It sounds as if Musk and Twitter are a match made in heaven.

It's precisely this narcissistic personality which some people love about him.

Personally I blame marvel movies. Many immature people think the world is a superhero flick and Elon Musk is a real-life Tony Stark: arrogant billionaire genius who is going to fix the world from his superlab.

    He's always been like that - narcissistic, manipulative, 
    dishonest, hateful, lacking empathy, attention-seeking, 
    unhinged.

    I can't believe that so many people still haven't 
    figured him out

Many of their fans love them precisely because of those "negative" qualities.

People love a charismatic narcissist though.

Previous and the current presidents are far worse evil people. They first destroyed lives with meaningless lockdowns then pumped trillions of dollars which destroyed economy and impoverished people. Musk cannot even come close to these.