I absolutely believe he's a genius, just not in the way of Einstein or Tesla. He's a genius at assembling people in order to execute a vision, and when I say genius, I don't mean the layperson's definition of "really smart", I really do mean that whatever qualities combine in a person to allow them to convince hundreds, or thousands, or tens of thousands of people to follow them and help them build their vision, Musk is a genius-level intellect in that capacity.

He's not unlike Steve Jobs. They both possessed enough knowledge and technical acumen to understand what they're being told about disparate subjects, but they may not have the in-depth knowledge that a Jim Keller would. And despite my enormous respect for Keller, he's not an Elon Musk or a Steve Jobs. Jim's a craftsman at heart, and that comes through in interviews with him. Musk and Jobs are true visionaries.

Your description is not of a genius but more a "commercial community organizer" who organizes people and then negotiates between a company looking for cost reductions and State&Federal Governments to subsidize.

This is not genius-level but is the blending of two skills, a charismatic Administator, who can temporarily suspend disbelief, and a Fundraiser. Each of those takes a ton of work. I'm not minimizing Musk's dilligence in any way, but there are lots of people who can do those activities at high levels. The difference is that most people can't survive their tweeting SEC violations while stoned.