A lot of negativity towards Elon comes from the fact he has taken on a lot of deeply entrenched interests and conventional wisdom. I know a "car guy" who deeply hates Elon and hopes for Tesla's collapse, because he has invested his whole life learning about the "beauty" of the Internal Combustion Engine, how to tune it, how to improve it etc. And here comes a guy who wants to disrupt all of that with an engine that is much much simpler and challenging 100 years of research and development. Then there are people who believe electric and solar are for "greenies" and have been trained to viscerally react against anything that is related to renewable energy. He has also taken on the dealership model, the fossil fuel industry, utilities, launch companies etc. You get the picture.