It will be a surprise to nobody to hear that Robyn Denholm thinks Elon Musk is a great and uniquely talented chief executive. What is surprising is that she is talking about him publicly at all.

Denholm has become the most prominent Australian global executive thanks to her chairmanship of the businessman’s carmaker Tesla, a position that in theory means she has oversight of the world’s richest – and arguably, thanks to his friendship with Donald Trump, most influential – person.