Pretty ironic that we're talking about Musk - the one CEO who doesn't appear at least to be willing to do anything to be successful or do things that would appear to be maximally profitable just because he could - rather he seems to have some integrity and conscience. Standard CEO's OTOH, like most business owners/managers, are quite stupid (and at least quasi-sociopaths); and by pragmatic you just mean doing things that are easy and ostensibly profitable. That's not hard. You need to be a fair bit smarter to have firm ethics and honesty and be successful. Dealing with maximum-scumbag trump isn't in the realm of honesty or integrity. Tesla would get along just fine if Musk ignored him - in fact probably better. Trump, being a vindictive egomaniac however, could retaliate. So that might be your only point - maybe Musk should be pragmatic and just appease.