Twitter is incredibly important to him, without it he’d never have been able to craft his Tesla or SpaceX narratives and garner so much retail support. Buying Twitter guarantees him a (bully) pulpit and raises his profile ever higher. His antics could easily get him banned in the future, with devastating results.
I've heard this said many times but it doesn't align with my own observations of Tesla and SpaceX's success. Is there any evidence that Tesla vehicle sales and SpaceX launch services are driven by Musk's personality?
SpaceX's success is easy to explain: they could do the same task as competitors for a substantially lower price.
As for Tesla's market success, I think that's predominantly driven by the product itself. They won countless car of the year awards. Customer satisfaction levels at near-unprecedented levels. Record-breaking 0-60 times provide an angle for gushing media coverage. And a decade of having no competitors in the market subset of desirable EVs. I've personally never heard anyone mention Elon when describing why they're interested in—or purchased—a Tesla vehcile.
Tesla's success in the market for cars is not driven by buyers' love for Elon (much), but I'm not sure that's the case for Tesla's vastly disproportionate success in the stock market.
IMO, a significant contributor to Tesla’s market success was that they were willing to sell cars at low margins. That’s what got them a decade of having no competitors in the market subset of desirable EVs.
They also intuited/gambled/stumbled upon (pick your verb depending on what you think of it) that “electric and fast” was enough to compete against non-EV cars with much better finish.
They're talking about retail support for the stock price, not Tesla's operational performance in the real world. People aren't buying Tesla cars because of Musks antics but they are (or were) buying Tesla shares on that basis.
