Karpathy, Carmack, Andreesen, Jensen, Dawkins and others who know him IRL say the same. It's endlessly curious how people who don't know him are confident they know better.
NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang: “Building a massive [supercomputer] factory in the short time that was done, that is superhuman. There's only one person in the world who could do that. What Elon and the xAI team did is singular. Never been done before.”
Richard Dawkins: "I have a very favorable impression of Elon Musk and his concern for the welfare of the world.
I have sat with [Elon] on a transatlantic plane and had a very, very long conversation with him. He's undoubtedly highly intelligent and knowledgeable.
I've had lunch with him on two or three occasions, and so I know him a little bit.
I have formed a very favorable impression of his intelligence, his knowledge and his concern for the welfare of the world."