It sounds a lot like a case of "Live by the sword, die by the sword":
He has made lots of money by being a tecno-salesman who overhypes like crazy every venture he does, something which would only worked as long as people trusted him, and then he destroyed that trust by showing his true self, very publicly and very loudly, leading people to conclude he's an arsehole (and if he is an arsehole in things like how he treated the guy saving the kids in Tailand or it politics, it makes sense to expect he's an arsehole when it comes to over-proming and even lying to get others to give him their money) so all those hype trains he had going (and for example Tesla stock had about 10x P/E of Auto Companies in general, which very much a la-la-land valuation that implies it would take over the majority of the World's Auto Market - not just EVs but of all Auto sales) are now derrailing.
In this situation it doesn't really mater what he says about what he's trying to sell (such as the "good car" statement about Teslas) because he will simply not be believed.
See, this is what I thought his scam was too. Everybody rich enough or hippy enough was already trying to buy his cars. So in order to grow, he needed the conservatives. So his starts acting like them and he gets a new market.
The whole accusing the guy in Tailand of being a pedophile doesn't seem to fit that theory.
Your theory does explain some of his being an arsehole, just not all of it, maybe not even most of it.
It sounds a lot like a case of "Live by the sword, die by the sword":
In this situation it doesn't really mater what he says about what he's trying to sell (such as the "good car" statement about Teslas) because he will simply not be believed.
See, this is what I thought his scam was too. Everybody rich enough or hippy enough was already trying to buy his cars. So in order to grow, he needed the conservatives. So his starts acting like them and he gets a new market.
The whole accusing the guy in Tailand of being a pedophile doesn't seem to fit that theory.
Your theory does explain some of his being an arsehole, just not all of it, maybe not even most of it.