I think that’s what they mean by “on the surface”. If he had just kept the cringe quiet and stayed out of politics, he could have pushed the envelope on electric cars, rockets, robots, etc. and a majority of people would have been happy to see him do it. He had two things going for him: enormous wealth and a desire for cool tech.
He could have had as many stupidly named babies as he wanted, seethed about trans people and have time to actually get good at video games, all from the luxury of his many homes and jets. All he had to do was let his PayPal money get to work in his chosen tech industries and keep his personality out of it.
The world might have progressed a little, even. His companies would be better off. Many of us would have bought Teslas. The Cybertruck would never have happened. Twitter would… well, Twitter would still suck but it would be someone else’s fault.
I think the “verified audience” are people who bought tickets through Fandango. So, either they were the kind of people who wanted to see and like it or they bought tickets but didn’t actually go and are astroturfing.
Either way, the high ratings are definitely bullshit.