I'm not entirely sure these two opposites should have the same weight. Being a decent human should be the default and just some minor steps into shitty behaviour should be enough to justify significant criticism of a person. Consider the following generalisation on a random someone's behaviour:
Someone is sexist against 50% of the people the interact with? They are sexist.
Someone is sexist against 20% of the people the interact with? Still sexist.
That someone is sexist against 5% of the people the interact with? Still sexist.
The person does not stop being sexist/shitty/$negative_trait just because they most of the time are not acting on it. They become nice when they stop altogether, or at least make clear effort to stop.
So, back to Elon, considering his recent praise of work/life balance and slave-like conditions in China, I see no reason to believe his nice side should be considered equally or more worthy of praise than his negative side be considered for criticism.
Something like sexism, racism, etc are in a different category than merely "shitty", I think.
Putting Musk aside, I'd have to know a little more about what you mean by $negative_trait to agree or not. Everyone has negative traits, everyone is occasionally shitty. Frequency certainly matters, but assuming it's not very regular than maybe it comes down to what you said about "clear effort to stop". You have to be self aware enough to recognize it when it happens and work on doing better.
He is a complicated man and I think that's how history will look back on him. If he really does put people on Mars, I think that is about as big an impact on the history of the human race as one can have.
Someone is sexist against 50% of the people the interact with? They are sexist.
Someone is sexist against 20% of the people the interact with? Still sexist.
That someone is sexist against 5% of the people the interact with? Still sexist.
The person does not stop being sexist/shitty/$negative_trait just because they most of the time are not acting on it. They become nice when they stop altogether, or at least make clear effort to stop.
So, back to Elon, considering his recent praise of work/life balance and slave-like conditions in China, I see no reason to believe his nice side should be considered equally or more worthy of praise than his negative side be considered for criticism.