Merely astonished that such a brilliant man is apparently oblivious to the most basic prohibitions against pointing a loaded revolver at his own foot before gleefully firing off all six rounds.
Is he really brilliant, then?
I'm quite sure that's a debatable point, and that a reasonable argument could assert that he's an idiot, viewed from one's specific perspective.
Founding one public company, and founding yet another that probably could go public, counts for a rare kind of brilliance that few others possess. I certainly don't possess that ability. But that's just my perspective.
As with just about any other human, Musk is strong in certain cognitive abilities, and weak in others. Musk's strengths are exceedingly rare, but his glaring weaknesses are also exceedingly rare; i.e., he is utterly blind to common sense judgements that most other folks take for granted at a fairly young age.
Is he brilliant? Is he an idiot? There's no point in arguing. He is clearly well endowed with both characteristics in large measure.
Is he fit to execute the fiduciary duties of one in his various roles? Personally, I don't believe that he is. But that's a question for the regulatory authorities to answer.
If we need to assign only a single label, I'll go out on a limb and suggest we could both agree that he is an idiot savant at the very least; but an extremely highly functional idiot savant who has been able to conceal his disabilities from the general public for quite a long time. At least until about month ago.
I would argue that the flight of executive talent from Tesla is evidence that his cognitive weaknesses extend much farther into the past than this recent climax with the SEC might suggest, and that escalating pressure on Musk created by having to fill in the gaps caused by that loss of talent is only a symptom of the underlying problem, not the cause of it. Loss of valuable talent is yet another problem, in my opinion, that Musk created for himself for no discernible reason.
Above all other disabilities, Musk appears utterly incapable of delegating, and utterly incapable of trusting anyone's decision but his own. There are a lot of positions at Tesla where Musk could add a sh*t-load of value; perhaps game-breaking value. But an unrestrained CEO and COB are not among those positions, in my humble opinion.
And let's face it. The BOD, as currently constructed, is nothing more than a Musk puppet. Tesla has no chance to fix itself without regulatory intervention. And that's not an assertion that Tesla could survive as a going concern in that or any other scenario, either. I, hopefully obviously, have my doubts that Tesla will survive at all.