I agree with Gordy.
There is no doubt Peterson is intelligent.
Problem often comes with intelligent people they fail to understand their bounds, assume their intelligence will carry them through and they will by default make correct decisions when they need to take more time and think more clearly.
I don't think Elon and twitter could demonstrate that any more clearly.
I also think Elon will probably fix most of the damage he has done to twitter and quite quickly. I suspect however he will actually seek expert counsel into order to do this, but in private and not in public.
I have seen a few CEOs do this in my time and it will work out fine I am sure. Slowly reversing and just dropping things they publicly say in quiet as they are advised.
Whether Elon is going to be able to fix the equation of loading lots of debt onto twitter, opening it up to far more free speech and being able to increase income and reduce expenditure to make the books balance, I am far less certain of.
My two pennies whilst you all squabble about who's the alpha or whatever you're talking about....
This is an excellent point. Both Peterson and Musk are undoubtedly intelligent in any standardised measure (eg IQ, domain knowledge or success), so anyone suggesting otherwise is being a bit silly or emotional (ie because I don't like you, you're not intelligent).
The real danger with anyone here is back to the greek philosophers and Plato's republic. They tried to design society to avoid things that cloud judgement - eg too little wealth makes you desperate and greedy, too much makes you reckless and care less about impacts. Latter is certainly a risk that Musk must bear...
I'd also add that he's an engineer - and an extremely capable one at that, but engineers will tell you how to make things (like the atom bomb) - a humanities student will tell you why it might not be a good idea..... he will likewise have a blindside here.
Everything he's done so far is 'logical' - ie I've read countless studies (eg Google's Project Aristotle) which have shown how a very small number of 'hyper performers' really run companies and they always carry huge amounts of average/plodders, so an engineer mind would logically conclude that if you're short of cash, then just get rid of the 'baggage' and you're sorted. However, people are not logical and so it'll be interesting to see how this plays out.
I suspect he will fix the engineering challenges (eg twitter will radically increase their development speeds, attract more users, accelerate speed, balance income/cost etc), but whether he can win the public debate, the emotional side of leading etc I don't know.
One thing that should be considered is that Twitter was a car crash before he took it over - as Dorsey had admitted and given up on, so the folks at twitter's opinions on Musk should be taken with just as big a pinch of salt, as the 'beloved' company they worked for was a lame duck....