[panick21_]

The problem with that position is that plenty of people who also had money tried to just pay smart people, and most weren't nearly as successful.

The absolute shitton of failed car and rocket companies, including by people better financed then Musk, indicates this.

I guess you can say 'its just luck', but given that we are talking about two capital intensive industries that were widely considered almost impossible to break into, you would have to argue that he was lucky twice. I guess one can have that position, but I don't really think that's credible.

I guess one can say he isn't a great engineer but good CEO? Because he is the longest running CEO of the space and the car industry, and both companies over the last 20 years have been pretty successful.

Taking Bezos as a comparison, Bezos has been dropping like 1-2 billion per year into Blue Origin for almost 10 years and had a workforce comparable to SpaceX, who were the leader in rockets, sats and space transport of cargo and humans. SpaceX was started with less then 100 million $.

As some point just saying 'he had resources' just doesn't work. At some point you have to evolve your explication.