How many current automaker CEOs can you name? A few, I imagine, but certainly not every single one. Me too. For the most part the suits that run car companies are mostly toiling away in the background, invisible to all but the most obsessive industry watcher.

You won’t find Christian Meunier from Jeep dad-dancing at the opening of a new plant, or Opel’s Florian Huettl smoking weed while being interviewed for a Joe Rogan podcast. Dacia’s head honcho, Denis Le Vot, isn’t given to accusing rescue workers of being paedophiles, and Skoda CEO Klaus Zellmer would probably be forced out sharpish if he tweeted that VW Group’s share price was “too high” or challenged Vladimir Putin to a fight.

And can you imagine DS Automobiles’ Béatrice Foucher sending a DS 9 into space, appearing in a Marvel movie or releasing a song about a dead gorilla on Soundcloud as an April Fool’s prank?

Of course you can’t, and you’ve probably never heard of her anyway (I had to look her up for this post), which is just as it should be. But everyone has heard of Elon Musk, and we don’t just mean in the car community. The man is a household name even among the biggest car know-nothings, partly because of the way his electric cars helped change perceptions and acceptance of the electric car, but also because he really has done all of those goofy things listed above, and plenty more.

Like calling his smallest electric car the Model E (until Ford’s objection forced a change to 3), purely so he could make schoolyard jokes like the one in the tweet below.

Related: Elon Musk Reportedly Becoming Liability, Turning New Buyers And Old Away From Tesla

Musk is occasionally offensive, sometimes irresponsible, and annoys the hell out of plenty of people, probably including those he works with. But he’s also often highly amusing, undeniably bold, unafraid to turn convention on its head, and unarguably very smart. He’s the CEO that showed car fans who thought they were only interested in the metal in the showroom that what goes on behind the scenes to get it there is often equally fascinating.

But Elon Musk’s polarizing character and erratic behaviour means people tend to have strong opinions about him, and we suspect those opinions probably have significant sway on whether or not some potential buyers take a Tesla home or shop elsewhere. So leave a comment and let us know: does Elon Musk and his antics make you more or less inclined to buy a Tesla, and do you wish other automaker CEOs were more prepared to shoot from the hip.