He knows exactly what he's doing. It's multiple groups of shitheads using each other to gain power, not just one big group of elites who are all trustworthy buddies.
My guess is that Musk will need to buy a merc army before he's able to establish his own nation in space. Might already have one.
There's a reason he's been having Tesla divert more resources to their Optimus robots. The man intends to have a machine army that he could use in a coup. We play our cards right and get behind cloning research, we could have a Grand Clone Army. 200,000 units now, with a million more well on the way. Begun, the Clone Wars have.