I mean it doesn't help that Elon isn't actually a good engineer, he can just afford really good engineers, and his level of control has gone up in direct proportion to his ego. He could have afforded to just do nothing, it would have gone better for him.

There was an absolutely hilarious article a few years ago about how folks at spaceX had matrix rainfall screensavers running in windows and word documents full of gibberish saved for when word came that musk was coming so they could look busy in the way he imagines space engineers being busy looks.

The seeds of what he and people like JK Rowling would turn into were very visible years ago if you knew where to look, but that said I would love to see a book about how the combination of wealth and/or off-Internet fame and social media drove them and others insane.