Yeah, he was always that bad. There is a an excellent example in Eric Berger’s book about SpaceX early days(Lift off). I don’t remember the exact details, but there is a critical failure with one of the rockets, and Elon blames it on one of the best engineers. Later is found out it was not his fault, but Elon never apologised which just leaves vibes in the company.
And overall feel of reading the book that Elon treats everyone kinda bad, it is just not directly stated.