> wanting to be perceived as a real-world Tony Stark

The thing is, he _had_ this. He had all of Reddit worshipping him. He had the press. He had the tech-internet.

Then he knowingly blew it all up overnight to ally with Trump.

I think the reasons why are pretty clear: a son-who-loves-me became a daughter-who-despises-me and his companies got repeatedly hamstrung by California Democrats.

But if his root motivation was truly just approval, he would have taken it on the chin and accepted slower growth of his other ambitions. So it's a little more complicated than that.