The problem is that we also have many of these assholes in each of our countries, with the same opinions as Musk (but perhaps a little quieter about it) and with enough resources to also buy politicians and cause damage. It is the citizen's duty to be vigilant. It should be the journalists' duty to expose them, but investigative journalism has been dying, giving way almost exclusively to opinion-shaping commentators.
I'm more surprised that people are surprised by this. Being nobility class is this: you're free to make whatever rules you want for your subordinates, and you're free to disregard any of them. You're not bound by any sense of morality (whatever it might be); that's for lower men.
What were they expecting? Obviously these people won't comply with anything that's imposed on the masses, especially in a society where the norms are so restrictive.
And I further suspect that the more totalitarian a country is, the more its elite will deliberately choose to go against their own rules, as this is the greatest proof of their powerful social status.
We are embracing authoritarianism everywhere. Democracies are dying.
Politicians are not ignorant of the risks; as the article mentions, they had several advisors, including scientists, who warned of the danger. If our leaders didn't know it, they wouldn't exclude themselves from the proposal.
Their reward was getting a poorer country.