[InitialLastName]

> People don't generally make a mid career change into rocket science and then have the most successful private rocket launch company

... except for the other successful entrepreneurs who made mid-career changes to fund private rocket launch companies:

- Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin)

- Robert Bigelow (Bigelow Aerospace)

- Jim Benson (SpaceDev)

- Richard Branson (Virgin Galactic)

I'll grant that Musk appears to be a successful businessman, and an effective leader, but his real strength appears to be selling his ideas so hard that even his most Boring (tm) projects get covered in giant piles of hype.

[jacquesm]

You forgot Carmack and Armadillo Aerospace.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillo_Aerospace