gossip that Elon has no idea about running anything was circulating for a long time but since Tesla/SpaceX were not social media it was easier to manage the PR to make Musk seem like "tech and business genius, also twitter troll" regardless of what was going on behind the scenes. On Twitter every single decision hits millions of people and businesses within an hour and managing that is impossible for any PR department so we get to see the man as who he really is.