He did market himself pretty well, we gotta admit that. He's the head of multiple sciencey-sounding companies, and he just kept his idiot mouth shut. Not a bad plan, to be honest.
But then he started posting on Twitter. Whoops.
He never really kept his idiot mouth shut, though. But I think a lot of the tech and business media sources are rather invested in the idea that tech billionaires are geniuses who earned it, so his worst nonsense was underplayed when you needed journalists to tell you about it.