What size business? A “CEO” of a company with 20 or so employees is a whole different thing to Musk.
This guy was in my family for a decade during his rice up the ladder. Company he worked when I knew him was over 200k employees. He was VP there but he’s CEO at a different giant company now.
That’s nice, but it’s still only an anecdote and with your proximity to him leads to a bias. What I’ve learned about these people is that their real skill is being a smooth talker. I’ve dealt with business and political types and all the successful ones are smooth talkers. The root word for conman is Confidence, but that confidence doesn’t have to have any backing to it.
Confidence also means they need to have it in you. If you make wrong decisions you won’t be at the top for very long and your company will tank. Not defending CEO’s. Just saying in my experience these people are a different breed and most people would crumble.