I’m all of those, except for powerful. I get laid, but why aren’t women FIGHTING over me? That article is BS! 
Ok, answer to the question. I think at one time in the past, Musk successfully tricked a lot of people into believing that he was cool.
^This.
In the past, people mainly knew of Musk as someone trying to do cool things and so assumed he must be pretty cool as well. Then he made himself and his personality the centerpiece and that perception largely fell apart. If he was just “that electric car and space guy” then people might still assume he’s a cool guy.
Just to bang on the point that Musk is primarily trying to impress 14 year old boys (a sentiment not original to me, I’m sure I read it someplace), here is the map of Tesla’s robotaxi expanded service area in Austin:
(Brought to my attention on Electrek)
I’ve never had that opinion. Even though i did think Tesla was a good thing that made the world a better place (I still do, I’m primarily pissed at the cyber truck because converting American truck drivers to EVs is a massive win for the environment, far more so than converting people who drive compact cars, and its such a bag of shite its never going to do that
Two particular things (long before he went fash) stand out to me, as why I’ve always thought he’s a dickhead…
Just about the first time i heard the name Musk was a gushing interview in some tech clickbait or other where he listed his “unbeatable” job interview question. And it was an incredibly dumb obvious question something like “where are you if you turn in any direction and move forward, and go South”. The answer being clearly the North Pole. Not being smart is not the same thing being uncool, but a super rich guy trying to be smart and demonstrating he is really dumb, thats uncool.
The whole flamethrower thing:
Surely the classic example of Musk trying desperately to be cool, in a way that would only impress a 14 year old, and that stands a pretty good chance of horribly injuring people. I don’t know how many (if any?) actually ended up in customer’s hands, or if any of them managed to set fire to themselves with it. But that was always a likely outcome for no other reason than Musk trying to be cool. That is about as uncool as it gets
I would think that he at least would know how to wear a tie.
With automated taxis is it easier to stiff the driver?
I thought the flamethrower thing was pretty cool. What’s not to like about fire? 
(as long as it’s controlled, of course)
“Kids love this one!”
-Yogurt in Spaceballs
Is it cool to deliberately engineer his AI platform to reflect and reproduce his personal worldview?
I mean flamethrowers are kinda cool. If he’d made one in his garden shed that would be sort of cool, in a “ha ha cool dude! (Checks nearest exits, wonders if i don’t come back whether anyone knows I’m here)” kinda way.
But the richest guy in the world paying his people to make a flamethrower he can sell to his fanboys, just screams “look at me! Look how cool i am! Aren’t i so cool!” Thats incredibly uncool.
Yeah and Musk fanboys who are willing to fork out 500 bucks for a flamethrower are pretty much bottom of the list of people i trust to safely use one in a controlled way. Not that fastidiously caring about all the repercussions of your actions is necessarily cool. But the fact Musk himself is completely isolated from any repercussions (you can bet he only operated one under the safe supervision of a professional) of something thats just about trying to make him look cool, makes it pretty uncool IMO