There’s a lot of evidence that he’s an ass-hat

That's a separate question from the one I thought we were discussing.

But equally unverifiable evidence that makes him look like a kind of crazy genius is A-OK?

It's all unverifiable to us. But at that point you have to remember the elephant in the room: his companies' multiple successes, pushing forwards the state of the art, in multiple domains, in a commercially viable way.

I'll remind you that my previous comment used wording such as "I suspect", and "you can imagine". I'll now, off the top of my head, put a number on it. I'm 85% confident that the primary explanation for his otherwise unlikely run of successes, is that he's a genius of an engineering manager.

What's your primary explanation, and confidence level?

Which makes sense, given that the folks that adore him are also into conspiracy theory nonsense.

I consider myself anti- conspiracy theory. When I encounter them in various comment sections, I quite often briefly reply, politely correcting people. My guess would be that such people are more likely than average to dislike Musk.

As for me, I don't adore him. And I have multiple criticisms, and things I'd want to learn more about before judging him too positively overall.