The Musk likely knows who and what he himself is, even if only in the darkest and most sleepless hours of the night, but on the other hand, his followers eat this shit up like candy. "Survival of the fittest" - caveat: in the current climate, or rather the one from the last few decades - has led to him being put in charge of way more than he should, in the same manner that a cockroach is "fitter" than humans since they will outlast our having caused WWIII (unless we make it to space, which seems increasingly unlikely at this point, at least within any of our current lifetimes).

Anyway, it is important to remember that he does not do this for reason of mere stupidity - he literally gets paid to dish out this kind of shade.

Edit: case in point, the fact that we are discussing this now, and also the title of this post. If Elon had said "I respect you", that would have been the end of the matter right there, but it would not have met his goals (or apparently, ours either).